


Different Worlds

by whimsicalwombat



Category: The Blacklist (TV)
Genre: AU Fic, F/M, I'm kind of torn as to whether to rate this T or M, Liz and Ressler finally turn up in Chapter 5 and then again briefly in Chapter 10, Mr Kaplan is never a villain in this AU, it's going to be a slow burn, other characters also occasionally turn up in the background
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-02
Updated: 2017-09-03
Packaged: 2018-11-07 13:26:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 44,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11059920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whimsicalwombat/pseuds/whimsicalwombat
Summary: After hearing of her brother's death in Pishin, Samar went rogue from Mossad in a spiral of grief and anger, seeking to hunt down her family's killers. Over time, she ended up one of the most mysterious and deadly assassins in the criminal underworld, never tracking down Red or joining the Taskforce at the Post Office.Aram meanwhile, stumbles across her during an unrelated investigation, and believes her to be the elusive 'Phoenix', only for the team at the Post Office not to take him seriously… And for Samar to turn up at his door, wondering how after years of lurking in the shadows, he finally found her.





	1. The Phoenix

**Author's Note:**

> Ok, so this is definitely my post-'Life is what we make of it' rebound fic. Finishing that one has completely messed with my writing mojo, making it impossible to plan out in detail any other story. The idea for this one is one of many I've had sitting in my notes for a while, and there are still a few frustrations with it to iron out, but hopefully if I throw my usual writing routine to the wind and just post the first chapter of this one, the mojo and inspiration will come back and the ball will start rolling. 
> 
> Let's see where this goes, shall we?

An unexpected knocking on Aram's front door, jolted him from his laptop. He looked up from the couch, furrowing his brow in confusion in the general direction of the door, and wondering who on earth would be stopping by when the clock in the corner of his laptop screen told him that it was barely thirteen minutes shy of midnight. Aram shuffled across the apartment, warily pulling open the front door.

His eyes widened in a split second of terror at the sight of the woman who stood there.

Aram knew that face. It was the face he had tried to alert his team to when he had stumbled across it earlier in the day and realised who it belonged to. It was a face framed by wild, dark curls, and bearing fierce, dark brown eyes that felt like their gaze drilled into his skull.

And most importantly in that moment, it was a face that was decidedly _not_ happy to see him.

The woman stepped forwards before Aram could even try to fight back, pushing her way through the door and allowing it to fall closed behind her, then bundling him up against the wall, with her forearm across his neck. She didn't even reach for the sidearm Aram could see bulging at her hip under her coat but then again, she really didn't need to. She was powerful and intimidating enough without it.  
'Who are you?' She hissed. Dark eyes glinted at him in frustration and suspicion, effectively silencing any instinct Aram had to call out for help.  
'Ar-' he began to stutter, squirming against her grasp, 'um, Aram Mojtabai-'  
'CIA?' The dark haired woman fired off her next round of furious questioning, 'NSA?' Aram blinked before responding, his voice shaking as he finally spoke;  
'F-FBI.'

That answer was apparently unsatisfactory.

The woman's grasp slipped down to the front of his shirt, pulling Aram off the wall, dragging him across the room and throwing him into one of his own dining chairs. She was fast and systematic in her approach; before Aram could even blink, his wrists were being tied behind his back, and his ankles to the chair legs. He didn't fight back; Aram could see easily that he wouldn't stand a chance against the woman who was clearly all too well trained. Trying and failing to fight back would only result in some kind of unspeakable pain, whereas... Being tied to a chair wasn't one hundred percent comfortable, but wasn't anywhere near as bad as the alternative. Finally, the woman stood back, glaring at him with her jaw clenched in frustration.  
'Why is the Federal Bureau of Investigation investigating me?' She seethed.  
'It's not,' Aram insisted, ' _I'm_ not.'

Those dark eyes continued studying him with an intensity as fiery as the name of the woman they belonged to, making Aram's own widen in fear. The woman in front of him was not the subject of any open Bureau investigation that Aram knew of, but he had found her in the background of some security footage he had trawled through earlier in the day  for another case and tried to identify her, believing at first that she was a witness. Needless to say, he had been wrong. Running facial recognition had pulled up a series of mismatching, partial identities and odd travel patterns, which had sent him down a rabbit's warren of searching for connections. Trying to identify her had been a far more complex puzzle than the usual matching of a face to a driver's license, and that only meant one thing; she was staying off the grid and covering her tracks for some reason.

Looking into that further, rather than focusing on the case at hand, had unravelled far too many patterns for Aram not to conclude that she was The Phoenix. The only problem with that however, was that most of law enforcement thought that The Phoenix was a myth -the sort of mysterious assassin they attributed any unsolved murder to, just because they didn't know what else to do.

But, The Phoenix wasn't a myth. The lore that floated around criminal circles was that The Phoenix was trained by Mossad but went rogue years earlier for reasons unknown, eventually becoming one of the most effective assassins one could hire. Her alleged kills were spread further apart in time than that of the average assassin, with no link in the MO besides the fact that they were meticulous. Each one was different, staged as gang shootings, muggings gone wrong, suicides, mysterious disappearances, or whatever else seemed most applicable to the given target so that it didn't _look_ like a hit. Only whispers through the criminal underworld gave rise to any idea to the contrary, and none of them offered anything that could help identify her. The Phoenix was faceless, nameless, and consistently uncatchable in the way she spaced out her kills by spending an agonising amount of time carefully studying each target and then going to ground for a while before taking on the next.

There was only one other factor that was common in every rendition of The Phoenix's lore; that she only targeted those who hurt others first.

The idea that she was real had intrigued Aram all day... Until now. Now, she was standing right there in front of him, turning her attention from him to opening up his laptop on the table and tapping away at the keyboard, trying to figure out what he knew, all the while Aram was not so much intrigued anymore, as utterly terrified.

She was lethal, she was ruthless, and he had _no_ idea what she was about to do to him.

'You pinged four of my aliases,' The Phoenix muttered as she typed, 'aliases that _nobody_ has linked in the better part of a _decade_ -' she paused, lifting her gaze just long enough from the screen to raise a single, disbelieving eyebrow '-and that's _not_ investigating me?' Aram hesitated as he met her gaze.  
'It was more of an accident,' he began warily, 'I came across them while investigating someone else and happened to make the connection-'  
'-And you didn't report that to your superiors?' She asked, quickly cutting him off. Her expression was still disbelieving; the truth as Aram knew it, was one that was merely coincidental and one that she was unlikely to believe and yet... There was little else he could tell her.  
'I tried,' Aram insisted, desperately now, 'they wouldn't listen, they told me to dismiss it. They all think you're a myth.' The Phoenix narrowed her eyes, studying him carefully again. Her voice was slow and dangerously suspicious as she replied;  
'Why should I believe you?'

That was the question that echoed in Aram's ears more than any other. What else could he say to answer it and make her believe him?

/*/*/*/*

Still tied to his own dining chair, Aram eyed the intruder to his apartment, who was still alternating between pacing back and forth, asking questions, and doing something with his laptop that he couldn't see. The Phoenix was calmer now; not entirely calm, but certainly less ferocious than she had been when she had first pushed her way through the door perhaps an hour earlier. If anything, the anger had simply been replaced with suspicion and an air of being conflicted, like she had figured out for herself that Aram wasn't the threat she had first thought he was, but now didn't know what to do with him.

She was on edge; perhaps Aram wasn't investigating her, but he _did_ know who she was… And _that_ was a problem.

Aram on the other hand, was also a little calmer. Guaranteed he too, was not entirely calm either, but the fact that despite being tied to a chair and interrogated, The Phoenix still hadn't technically inflicted any pain on him, had Aram a least slightly less terrified than he had been. The hesitation was still there -to the point that his shoulders were still slightly raised in fear and unlikely to lower any time soon- but now the curiosity of having discovered her earlier in the day, was back with a bang. He was calmer enough now that he had some sense of awareness of things beyond the fact that a ruthless assassin had him tied to a chair. The fact that despite her intimidating demeanour, she was actually quite beautiful had certainly caught his attention by now, as had how tall she was. But what had him most concerned now, strangely enough, was that The Phoenix also seemed to be sick. Dark, tired circles sat heavy under her eyes, and if Aram listened carefully over the sound of her tapping away at his keyboard, he could hear intermittent sniffling and rattling in her breathing. More noticeable was the cough he heard when The Phoenix turned her head away from him between questions every so often.

Aram estimated that she had the particularly nasty cold that was going around, or perhaps even the flu. It was something that once Aram noticed, he couldn't _un_ -notice it. Tied there in a chair, in the silence of nothing but occasional keyboard taps, there wasn't much he could do but watch her and flinch at each cough as she stood there, going through his digital files. The Phoenix however, seemed determined not to let her sickness drag her down, gritting her teeth and stubbornly keeping her head down as she worked, almost as if refusing to acknowledge the congestion in her sinuses would make it magically go away. Shoulders still raised in  nervousness and wondering whether or not he should address it at all, Aram spoke up;  
'How long have you been coughing like that?' He asked, his voice barely inaudible. The Phoenix furrowed her brow in confusion as to why he would ask such a thing, but her gaze stayed firmly focused on the laptop screen in front of her.  
'A week or so,' she murmured. Aram bit his lip.  
'I have some lozenges,' he quietly spoke up again, 'they're not great but you can try them if you want-' he paused, eyeing her warily for a moment before continuing '-or there's tea in the kitchen, and honey too. That could help.'

Finally, The Phoenix glanced up from the laptop screen, turning her gaze to him. He look on her face was suspicious now and she eyed him for a moment, almost frustratedly. A breath caught in Aram's throat.

'Are you trying to convince me to leave the room again so you can escape?' The Phoenix asked drily.  
'Actually…' Aram stammered back, eyes wide, 'I was just trying to be nice.'  
'Why would you be nice to me?' All traces of suspicion were gone from The Phoenix's voice, in favour of confusion. For one, she had him tied to a chair, and secondly... She spent so many years living off the grid, lurking in the shadows alone with little to no other human contact beside the limited communication with clients and targets, the concept of anyone being _nice_ to her seemed borderline foreign by now, let alone the concept of someone who she had tied to a chair being nice to her. Aram hesitated at the question -the Phoenix's own confusion over niceness only serving to confuse him in turn.  
'I try to be nice to everyone.' He internally braced himself as he spoke, wary and wondering if it was some kind of trick question. The Phoenix however, simply blinked, apparently awaiting some kind of follow up. Still wary, Aram furrowed his brow and gritted his teeth, thinking back to every story he had heard of The Phoenix, and trying to add some level of conviction to his voice that would convince her. 'And because… You only kill the people who hurt other people, the ones that get away with it because they cover their tracks. Law enforcement can't take them down, but you _can_.' Somehow, it came easier to him than Aram had expected. The stories of her exploits had resonated with him somehow, in a way he couldn't quite explain. 'The tea will help with your throat, really.' The Phoenix pursed her lips together. Her eyes crinkled slightly, almost amused by him, as she turned them back to the computer screen. In all honesty, she wasn't entirely sure what to make of him. On one hand, her immediate instinct was to question everyone's intentions and not to trust anyone, but on the other hand... She was as intrigued by him as he was by her. Nobody had ever managed to track her before -and it had been years since anyone had ever actually thought to offer her tea.  
'Your search isn't wide enough,' The Phoenix murmured, rather than keeping with the topic of the cough she was trying to pretend didn't exist. Against his better judgement, Aram tried not to think back to the search that had resulted in finding her in the first place... The search, that he was planning to run in further detail the next morning to find out even more about her again.  
'What search?' The attempt at an oh so innocent voice was a dismal failure, and the slight crack in his tone only served to cause The Phoenix's lip to curl into a smirk.  
'The one that pinged four of my aliases all in a row once you found one and ran it against the various databases,' she mused, then paused to turn her head sideways and cough back into her shoulder. Aram flinched at the sound; that cough was a particularly raspy one. Regardless, The Phoenix turned straight back again to continue as if she hadn't even stopped; 'you only ran my identity against _airport_ border controls when you looked for patterns.'  
'So?'  
'So, I have different identities for each different form of border control; air, sea, road, train, and so on. I never overlap them. The few times I've ever been compromised, they only catch one set, while the others remain in tact because you all make the same mistake.' The Phoenix glanced back at him, an almost smug smile tugging at her lips. 'Then I can keep moving, just using a different form of transport, until I create new identities to replace the old ones. I'm never trapped.'  
'If you don't want me investigating you, why would you tell me that?' Aram asked, in what felt like the umpteenth wary question of the night. The smug smile on The Phoenix's face seemed to widen.  
'You said you weren't investigating me.'  
'I'm not.'  
'And I'm not the only one who uses that tactic so they can't be tracked or caught,' she quipped. 'Remember that the next time you investigate someone else,' she added, finally allowing Aram's laptop to fall softly closed again on the table beside him. She paused again, tilting her head to eye him there for a moment like a cat trying to figure out how best to toy with a mouse before letting it free for another round of chasing. 'Consider it me being… Nice.'

The word felt strange as it rolled from her tongue and then hung in the air between them, but she left it there regardless.

'So… You're not going to kill me?' Aram's eyes widened slightly. It felt like he was getting away with something far too easily.  
'Not today.' The Phoenix's lip quirked up, then she ducked behind his chair to untie his wrists. 'But I am going to order you to stay in this chair for fifteen minutes after I leave, without touching your phone, your laptop, or any other method of communication.' The Phoenix stood back for a moment, a wry smile beginning to etch its way across her face as she eyed the free hands itching to reach down to the still-tied ankles, but forcing themselves to sit still on his knees. A second later, and she marched the few steps across the room towards the hallway to leave.  
'Wait,' Aram called out to her, craning his neck to see further than the chair would allow him to. 'What's your name?' The Phoenix ducked her head back around the doorway between the living room and the hallway, peering in at him.

'I thought you knew that one already,' she mused, giving a nonchalant shrug. 'But you can call me Samar.'

She ducked back around the doorway, vanishing into the darkness of the hallway. A moment later, and Aram heard the sound of his front door closing behind her.

As ordered, he waited the fifteen minutes before lurching forwards to untie his ankles and then dart across the room to stare out through the window across the street. Not one thing outside appeared to be moving at all.

The Phoenix was gone.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are always loved and appreciated! :)


	2. Reappearance

Months passed, where Aram never saw The Phoenix again. Still, he remained fascinated, but the high caseload took over every moment in the office that he could have otherwise spent thinking back to that night spent tied to his own dining chair, or trying to track her down. She didn't appear in the background of footage for any new cases, and she didn't return to his apartment.

Liz and Ressler, for the most part, had even entirely forgotten that he had ever mentioned the possibility of identifying her at all.

And that was probably how The Phoenix would have wanted it, if Aram was being quite honest with himself.  

It wasn't until Aram managed to catch a breaking news report on his computer one morning while waiting for a delayed Reddington to turn up for a case briefing, that he saw her again. At first Aram thought he was imagining it. He did a double take, furrowing his brow and freezing the video of a huge crowd surrounding a scene of what appeared to be a gang shooting, and then zooming in.

And there she was.  

Head down, ducking and weaving through the crowd to slip away in the opposite direction to that which everyone else was clambering along for a better glimpse of the local police working the scene... But Aram knew that face. It was burned into his brain ever since that teasing smile she had shot in his direction before disappearing into the darkness for good. He had no idea if that shooting was her latest disguised target, or whether she just happened to be caught in the crowd at the wrong moment, but it was what Aram _did_ know that brought every burning curiosity about her back in a flash.

She was _there_.

Before Aram could even stop himself, his fingers were flying across his keyboard, bringing up those same search parameters that he had used to find her the first time around. The curiosity was overwhelming; he wanted to know where she had been, what she had been up to in the time that had passed, and every other tidbit of information that he could find. In seconds, matches to the identities he had tracked the last time began to pop up on his screen. There were gaps of course -Aram knew he didn't know all of her various identities and in turn, would never be able to track _all_ of her travels- but it appeared that in the last few months she had zigzagged her way back and forth across the globe. Just with the identities that Aram knew alone, he could see that she had surfaced in at least five other countries. Of those, he could match her time in Canada and France with mysterious, unsolved deaths that he suspected could be her work... But as for Russia, Brazil, and even Australia, Aram had no idea what The Phoenix had been involved in, let alone to and from where she had travelled between each one.  

Yet despite all that, as soon as the war room's elevator doors rumbled open and Reddington stepped out, turning his trademark fedora over in his hands, the search vanished from Aram's keyboard with all of two keyboard taps.

There was something about The Phoenix that he didn't want to share with the team. She was a criminal, _technically_ -and would be a big fish to catch at that, if anyone actually bothered to make a case rather than dismissing her as mere mythology... But there was something about her that made Aram want to keep his findings to himself.  

/*/*/*/*

Samar meanwhile, kept moving through the crowd until she managed to pass through into an alleyway. The alleyways of DC, much like those of many other cities around the world, were well known to her by now, as was how to traverse endless ways back and forth across the cities with them so as to move forever unseen. It didn't take long for her to reach the abandoned warehouse that served as her latest temporary hideout. The small space wasn't much, but it was enough to serve its purpose; it was concealed, quiet, it had lighting, enough wall space for planning, and enough floor space for camping out. All of her belongings were limited to what she could keep on her person or in the sort of long backpack normally used for camping with a sleeping bag and rollout mattress clipped to the bottom. That in itself was useful twofold; for one, it made her mobile. With everything constantly packed in something easy to carry, Samar could make a move out of her accommodation in an emergency or potential blown cover, with incredible ease and speed. Secondly, just the _appearance_ of a travel backpack was a useful cover for a criminal travelling alone, back and forth across the globe. She was easily young enough to still pass as woman taking a year of her life to travel alone around the world as a backpacker, seeking to find some sense of self.  

As for the warehouse; it wasn't a home, but with the belongings being what Samar was more attached to than any given place, it was certainly comfortable enough. Occasionally, and depending on where in the world she was, she allowed herself the alternative of a cheap motel room, or even a stolen or rented van of some sort. In America, however, with checks on identity documents common in most –if not all- hired accommodation, and the local police on the ball enough to identify and pull over stolen vehicles quickly, Samar stuck to abandoned spaces that she could break into and then seal off for herself. For her, those were the safest and the most off the grid lodgings anywhere.  

This one in particular, was one of the nicest Samar had stayed in, in quite some time. It appeared to be an old, abandoned furniture store or at the very least, the storage space for one. Several chairs, tables, and couches remained strewn around the space that though dusty, were dry and well in tact from years of preservation.  

As soon as Samar re-entered the space, pulled off her dark hoodie and draped it over one of the chairs, she sat down at the table where her backpack and laptop still rested. She pulled the sidearm from her hip and set it in front of her, immediately beginning the ritual of pulling apart the pieces and attentively cleaning every one. It was a street piece –as were most of her weapons used for general hits- bought from the local underworld every time she arrived somewhere new, and then onsold back to the streets when she left again. The knife she concealed at her hip went with her everywhere, but the firearms... Constantly changing them meant that those she killed were never forensically linked by bullet striations and if anything, the fact that each individual she killed would instead share forensic links with other crimes committed by those she bought the pieces from and sold them back to, only served to cause reasonable doubt if ever she were to be arrested and tried for her crimes. Regardless, Samar was adamant about meticulously stripping down and cleaning each piece before and after use, both to make sure it functioned properly, would be clean of her fingerprints, and most importantly –because the process focused her mind and relaxed her body.  

A dinging noise from her laptop jolted her attention from pulling apart the pieces, and Samar glanced up again. A second ding made her furrow her brow in confusion, then a third and a fourth ding quickly had an uneasy feeling settling deep in her gut. Samar reached across the table, pushing aside the pieces of her weapon and pulling the laptop towards her instead. Those dings were sounds that she almost never heard –with the exception of a few months earlier. Each was the sound of a picture of her face or the name of one of her aliases being run through some kind of government database. Samar had a program on her laptop that was set to a continuous watch on all of her aliases so that she would know the very instant any single one was compromised. Occasionally a ding would signal that at some point earlier in the day she had walked past a security camera that ran all passing faces through a generally harmless facial recognition program that turned up no results, but _four_ dings _all_ in quick succession...

That had only happened once before, when a certain FBI strategic and tactical technician had uncovered her tracks the first time around.

Now it seemed, as Samar's eyes quickly scanned the alert results on the screen in front of her, said FBI technician was running those same four aliases all over again.      

Samar let out a small sigh, now no longer quite so startled by the possibility of being compromised, but simply frustrated and curious as to why, after months had passed, the FBI technician that she had once tied to a chair but who had never chased her down for it afterwards, was suddenly looking into her aliases _again_.  

/*/*/*/*

Aram had barely returned home from the Post Office, thrown his bag, tie, and jacket over the end of the couch, and then collapsed onto it for all of five minutes, before the knock on his door echoed through the apartment. With a warily furrowed brow, he pushed himself up off the couch again, and headed back towards the door.  

She stood almost nose to the door, as if waiting to push her way straight into the apartment and close it behind her as soon as it began to move.

Within a second of that door closing, Samar leaned back against it, arms folded and eyebrow raised somewhere halfway between amusement and _daring_ Aram to be investigating her again.

'You pinged?' She drolly began. Aram gaped for a moment, not really sure how to respond. All at once there were two completely opposite thoughts running through his head; ' _oh hey, nice to see you again,_ ' and ' _oh crap, I'm about to die_.'  
'You're-' he stammered back, '-you're _here._ ' As soon as the surprise of seeing her again in the news footage had worn off, and he'd had a moment to realise just how much of her travels he had been able to track, all of a sudden the anxiety of knowing there could potentially be a return visit as a result that was considerably more painful than the last one, had overtaken his gut.

And yet somehow, despite the terror of wondering if this time she really _would_ kill him, Aram couldn't stop himself from being foolishly pleased to see her.  

'But _why_ am I here?'   
'I saw you in coverage of that gang shooting today,' Aram hurriedly explained, 'and it made me curious, you know…' He trailed off, shrugging almost sheepishly in response to the smirk very quickly etching its way across The Phoenix's face. Or rather, _Samar's_ face, as Aram had to keep reminding himself to call her now.   
'…To see if pinging me again would make me turn up again?' Samar finished the train of thought for him.   
'Yeah, kind of... I guess.' Aram shrugged again, still not quite sure what to make of the sudden reappearance of the assassin currently standing between him and his own front door.

Samar's eyes crinkled slightly as she studied the way Aram shuffled awkwardly on his feet in front of her. He was wary still, but not terrified, and despite the awkward shuffling he had an equally awkward grin on his face. Just as she had expected, he was clearly not a threat. But what she hadn't expected was just how pleased he would be to see her again... And even more unexpected was just how oddly nice that would feel. After her parents had been killed and she had been forced to raise herself and her brother, Samar had been left with little time for friends around the duties she had forced herself to take on. Defecting to Mossad after that had given her some semblance of family and feeling of home, but that had dissipated quickly the instant she had learned of her brother's death too. Ever since leaving Mossad behind –and leaving a large, ominous, 'Missing in Action' mark to be stamped in her personnel file too- Samar had dropped off the radar, and the only way to _stay_ off that radar, was to give up all her contacts for good. What had started as the simple need to get away from her teammates for a short while so that she could grieve and hunt down her family's killers, had turned into self-appointed mission after self-appointed mission to take down everyone in the same secret government program as the man who had killed her parents, righting the injustices committed against others who shared her childhood pain, and trying to finally take out the man who had caused it all... And never being able to return to Mossad or her old colleagues again. After all, she couldn't stay off the grid, taking people down for the better part of a decade without ever being thought of as any more than a myth if anyone knew who she was –nor would Mossad ever condone what she had done. Years of talking only to strangers as a result had become the norm, to the point where she no longer craved the friendships she had left behind, and had almost forgotten what they felt like... Until now. Now, seeing someone standing in front of her, happy to see her for some reason, was a reminder of everything she had forced herself to forget in the name of trying to keep some semblance of sanity. And in fact, it had her fascinated and curious, wondering if maybe, just _maybe_ , she could allow herself some leeway on her no personal contacts rule for once.  

'So...' Samar mused, lip curling up into a wry smile, 'what do you want?'  
'I don't-' Aram began, then paused and shook his head, furrowing his brow.  'Wait... _Huh?'_  
'You compromise one of my identities today just to see if I would turn up, and… You don't _want_ anything?'  
'Well, to be fair, I pinged it but didn't share it, and then I erased both the search and the results from the system so it's not _technically_ compromised-' Samar's grin only widened as she gently lifted one hand, cutting off Aram's rambling.   
'-So you just wanted to say… _Hi?_ ' Samar resisted the urge to let out a soft laugh as she spoke and finally, Aram broke into a more genuine –and distinctly _less_ terrified- grin of his own.   
'…I guess so?' He chuckled –albeit still with the tiniest hint of nervousness. He was mostly sure by now that she was just toying with him, and not about to inflict any pain. _Mostly_.  

His own gaze studied her back for a moment; Samar's folded arms relaxed and fell to her sides. Her crinkled eyes and wry smile certainly didn't _appear_ threatening. The bulge of a weapon at her hip was still there but then again, so too was it always there for Aram's colleagues, so that alone didn't worry him.  

And most importantly, now that Aram's burst of momentary terror at her reappearance had worn off, and he'd had that moment to take in the sight in front of him in its entirety, he couldn't help but notice the smaller details yet again. The dark circles were gone from under Samar's eyes, and the colour was back in her cheeks. She was breathing normally again too, rather than coughing and wheezing.   
'I see your cold's gone,' Aram softly spoke up again, breaking the brief silence that had fallen between them. It was small talk, but at least it was one step forwards from debating why she was there... Not to mention, it was better than talking about the weather.   
'People don't say hi to me.' Samar's voice was softer too then –and even bore a hint of contemplative reflection- but still it made a very quick jump past the small talk. Needless to say Aram got the point.    
'Maybe they should,' he murmured back. That flash of contemplation flickered across Samar's face for barely a second before she forced herself to blink it away... But not before Aram caught it and made a careful note of it in the back of his mind.   
'Maybe _you_ should,' Samar shot back. She winced as soon as the words left her mouth, knowing immediately from Aram's half jump on the spot and the widening of his eyes in alarm at her tone, meant that she was being a little too defensive about the life she led that he knew next to nothing about and had no intention of slighting. Trying to figure out where they stood with one another now was complicated; neither of them was a threat to the other, but it was all too new to trust each other as they would a friend, no matter how curious they both were to know each other better, or how desperately they both wanted to move past small talk despite having no idea what to say. With a small sigh, she bowed her head back to him, switching topics back to the small talk; 'I drank some tea...' She trailed off for a moment, letting out a small smile, 'and I took some lozenges.'  
'I was, uh...' Aram began again, more cautiously this time but still pleased. 'About to order some takeout for dinner. Did you want-  
'-Actually,' Samar gently –and reluctantly- interjected, 'I have a train to catch.' She paused, almost disappointed by the fact that she had to keep moving. She could never stay in one place for too long without risking being caught, and she had no idea when she would next be in DC. 'But here-' Samar held out a flip cell phone to him '-next time you feel like saying hi, try _this_ instead of running my aliases through government databases.' She shot Aram a small smile, almost gently teasing in fact, as he took the phone and turned it over in his hands. It was a burn phone, there was no mistaking it... But it would certainly be more effective for communication than the way they had crossed paths so far.  

Aram's fingers tightened around the phone's plastic case and he glanced up again, a calmer, more mischievous grin spreading wide across his face.  

He had no idea what was going on between them or where it was going, but... He was quite intrigued to find out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is still a fic that I'm winging from post-huge-fic-lack-of-mojo, so if you're actually enjoying this one and want more, please leave feedback!


	3. Two Tiny Letters

Weeks went on. The burn phone stayed with Aram wherever he went, but he never dialed the one number saved in its contacts list. Several times he came close, turning the phone over and over again in his hands before opening it up and staring at the screen, finger hovering curiously over the call button until eventually deciding against it and burying the phone back deep in his pockets in frustration.

He wanted so desperately to hear her voice again, to _talk_ to her again... But he didn't know how.  

He was an FBI agent and not only that, but he hated the idea of anyone being hurt, well, ever. She, on the other hand, was an assassin, whose entire living was made by killing other people.  

In part, Aram was _desperately_ curious to know her better, but at the same time he had no idea how to justify to himself how they could ever possibly be friends when they both did what they did. Admiring the stories of her exploits from afar was not even close to the same as knowing her personally.  

The best he could do was focus on the fact that Samar didn't just kill _any_ random person, but focused only on those who hurt others first... On those, who did far _worse_ to other people than she did, and without whom the planet would undoubtedly be better off.  

But overall, Aram wasn't sure if he really should hit that tiny button on the phone or not.

It didn't help that he had no idea where on earth –quite literally, in fact- she was, or if the call would even go through, but talking to her was awkward too. What exactly was he supposed to talk to her about? ' _Hey, how was work today? Did you kill anyone?_ ' didn't seem to Aram like the best way to start a conversation, but besides the myths and truths of her work, he knew nothing else about her that he _could_ start a conversation about.  

Samar in turn, was facing a very similar struggle. In the weeks since gatecrashing Aram's apartment the second time, she had zigzagged across the States from DC to a target in New Mexico and then halfway back again. In that time, she too had toyed absentmindedly with the phone that never left her pocket, not quite sure what to do with it. As curious as she was to talk to Aram again, the idea that befriending an FBI agent was exceptionally dangerous territory, never quite left her head. The automatic instinct not to trust anyone ever –the very instinct that had been the only thing to keep her alive on multiple occasions- was at the forefront of her mind, and the knowledge that she and Aram were essentially on polar opposite sides had that instinct screaming far louder than it had in some time. Samar didn't know what to say to him either; she was so used to being on her own for years that conversation beyond small talk or business was difficult.  

She stared out the window of the train that had her heading slowly back to DC, all of those thoughts still spiraling aimlessly through her head.  

With a small sigh, she pulled the flip phone out of her pocket for what felt like the umpteenth time in the last hour or so of staring blankly into the distance. The blank gaze turned to the tiny screen in her hand, watching as fingers that in that instant didn't even feel like hers, typed out two tiny letters.  

Biting her lip, she paused for a moment, wondering if there was anything else to add... Before finally hitting the button she hadn't dared go near before.  

The send button. As soon as she hit it, Samar slammed the phone shut once more and then buried the phone deep in her pocket. The intense awareness of cool plastic against the thin fabric of her pocket felt like it was going to burn a hole in the side of her leg, but Samar forced herself to ignore it.  

Every instinct told her she was making the wrong decision, and yet... Her gut insisted that she do it anyway.

/*/*/*/*

Two tiny letters made one even tinier word that glared up at Aram from the screen of the burn phone in his hand.  

_'Hi.'_

He had jumped as soon as he had felt that unexpected buzzing in his pocket. For a moment, upon reading that single word, he had felt as if it couldn't possibly be real.  

And yet, it was.

Despite that, Aram still wasn't quite sure how to respond. He certainly couldn't respond while at work, in the middle of the Post Office where he was surrounded by trained agents and supposed to be busy working at his computer instead. He left it to sit at the back of his mind, every so often throughout the day pulling that phone back out of his pocket and flipping it open just for a few seconds to make sure that those two tiny letters were actually still there rather than a figment of his imagination.

It was when he finally got home, threw his backpack down by the side of the couch, and loosened his tie, that he pulled the phone out of his pocket and stared at the screen again -this time for _more_ than just a few seconds. Calling her back was a terrible idea; just the simple act of pursuing the whatever it was that they seemed to be doing -the teasing, curious dance of sorts around one another as a thrilling toe along the line between what they should and shouldn't do- rather than turning the woman he knew was a criminal over to the relevant law enforcement, was already an offence under Aram's job that could result in him being fired.

But still, now that she had been the one to break that barrier that worried them both, he couldn't stop himself.

That was all it took.  

Taking a quick breath, he opened up that text message once more, and hit the tiny phone symbol that sat next to the sender's number. It rang once, twice, three times, each one making Aram wonder whether he was doing the right thing, before the call picked up.  
'I was wondering if you would call,' mused the droll voice at the other end.   
'I couldn't _not_ return your hi,' Aram awkwardly laughed back. There was a brief pause, the dilemma of what they were supposed to say to each other now screaming inside both their heads once more. It took a moment, but finally Samar broke the silence;  
'Have you had dinner yet?' She asked. The droll confidence was no longer quite so strong in her voice –instead, it wavered just ever so slightly with apprehension.   
'Uh, no... Not yet,' he replied, 'I only just got home.'  
'Good.' There it was; the confidence was back, along with a healthy dose of matter of fact and the tiniest hint of amusement.  
'What-' Aram's curious question was cut off not only by the call hanging up, but by a sudden knock on the door. Aram raised a single, suspicious eyebrow, glancing back and forth between the door, and the phone in his hand. Cautiously, the phone was slipped back in his trouser pocket, and he reached forwards, gently tugging on the door handle.

Really, he shouldn't have been surprised by now to see Samar standing on the other side of it, whether he had ended up calling her back or not. Though at least this time, she stood a little further back from the door waiting for the invitation to come in rather than pushing her way inside, and she smiled –almost amusedly in fact- as she held out an all too familiarly shaped box that smelled as delicious as it looked. Aram couldn't help but break into a grin as she spoke again;  
'Pizza?'

/*/*/*/*

There was a certain odd, but pleasant air that Aram felt as they reached the end of the pizza. This time, Samar didn't have him tied to a chair or bundled up angrily against a wall but rather, she sat back on the couch, calm, relaxed and quite pleased to know that they both had the same taste in both pizza _and_ tea. If it wasn't for the fact that Aram knew better, he could have wondered if the woman now sitting in his living room really was the same one who he had heard so many stories about.  

'Do your colleagues know we're doing this?' Samar suddenly asked. Aram glanced over to her from the kitchen counter where he was swapping the now empty pizza box for fresh cups of tea. She was watching him, not that such a thing really bothered him that much; he had noticed that Samar was prone to quietly watching people and her surroundings, deciding how comfortable she was with them. At first, the eagle eyes trained directly on him had been frightening but then again, that had been while she first interrogated him. Now, Aram was unfazed by it, and he simply raised a curious eyebrow.  
'Doing what?'  
'This-' Samar gestured nonchalantly at the plates still on the coffee table '-we're…' She paused for a split second, unsure how to label it. 'Friends or something… Right?' That was yet another word that felt strange rolling off her tongue, and she furrowed her brow, almost irked by the unfamiliar and uncomfortable feeling of uncertainty that sat in her gut. In all truthfulness, _'testing out their curiosities about one another'_ was probably a better label for what they were doing, but _'friends'_   was certainly less of a mouthful.  

The _'or something',_ really, was even better.  

'Yeah, something like that,' Aram nodded quickly, answering the second question first, 'and no, they don't know.' Aram was smarter than that; as difficult as it was to stave off the longing to see Samar again, rather than report his sighting of the elusive Phoenix, he knew to keep that to himself. Samar gave a short, thoughtful nod; that, _somehow,_ was reassuring.   
'I can barely remember the last time I had a friend,' she mused, to herself just as much as to Aram. She scooped the plates off the coffee table as she stood from the couch, following Aram over to the kitchen. Aram raised a wary eyebrow at the statement, but noted that Samar didn't seem fussed about it. More than anything, it seemed to be a mere statement of empirical fact than anything truly wistful. He handed over the fresh mug of steaming tea, and Samar took it gladly, offering him a small smile.   
'What do you mean?' He asked.  
'Well...' She began, giving a nonchalant shrug. 'From the moment my family was killed, I was on my own besides raising my brother... And I've stayed on my own ever since I left Mossad when he died.' Aram paused, listening to her speak; he hadn't thought about it that way before, but the more he did now, the more it made sense. For a second, a pang of sympathy for her swelled inside. For all her strength and for all the fearsome stories that followed her wherever she went, being The Phoenix meant Samar now led an unbelievably lonely life, that seemed to have followed what Aram now knew was far from the easiest of childhoods. The contemplation and sympathy must have shown on Aram's face however, for Samar gave another nonchalant shrug, trying to shake off the awkwardness between them that her words had stirred. 'The only people I talk to now are clients, strangers… Bartenders-' her lip quirked up into an amused smirk as she spoke '-and apparently, _you_.' Her eyes crinkled, watching him over her mug as she took a sip of her tea –the smirk was practically still visible despite half her face disappearing behind the mug. Aram didn't really know what to say in response; he had always wondered what had led The Phoenix to leave Mossad behind and turn rogue, but all he had ever heard of her past was rumours, and he'd had no idea how many of those –if any- were true. Now however, it seemed that nothing he had heard was even _vaguely_ close to the truth. It made him even more curious to know what the truth really was, but if the look on Samar's face was any indication, now was not the moment to ask... Though such a moment could very well arise another night, once they knew each other better.

For the current moment though, Aram was simply glad that he had pushed aside those concerns –as dangerous as it was to do so- and called her back after receiving those two tiny letters that made one tiny word.

He had a feeling now that it was one tiny word they would be discreetly exchanging a lot more often.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, I'm going to say it: I seriously need feedback on this one, folks! *Please* leave a comment if you can.


	4. Catch Me if You Can

Piles of photographs and endless pages of notes were spread far and wide across the table in the abandoned furniture warehouse. Samar sat in front of them, focused intently on each and every one, with eyes narrowed in the frustration of having stared unsuccessfully at a puzzle for far too long.

Still, after years of hits as The Phoenix, the one killer who had started it all –the man who killed her parents- loomed at large.

Finding that one man and taking him down was all Samar ever had wanted to do in the spiraling grief after her brother had passed as well. Taking a temporary leave from Mossad had turned into a trail of searching, hunting down and taking out other killers from the same government program as the man who had been sent to murder her parents, as well as the officials in that program who had trained him and given him that order. Each one was a step closer to finding that man, and brought her a sense of justice for others like her whose loved ones had been killed and their families destroyed by that same program, just as hers had been... But _still_ , that one killer had managed to evade her, and had never been found.

It hadn't occurred to her that she had gone too far to ever be allowed to return to Mossad, until after she had nearly wiped out the program in its entirety.

That was when the quest for the life of one man, had turned her into The Phoenix. Taking down all those who had hurt others gave her that continued sense of justice, all the while earning a reputation as one of the world's deadliest assassins and all the matching paychecks, allowed her the freedom, cover, and resources to continue her own personal hunt... Until she was well beyond the point of no return. Nowadays, between jobs, she stared at the files she had accumulated over the years, desperately trying to figure out the one thing that she had missed... The one thing that allowed that killer to remain free.

She still didn't even have a name for the man, just a mountain of aliases, and the image of his face that had been burned into her memory ever since the day he had pushed his way past her terrified twelve year old self on the way out of her family home after leaving her parents bodies bloodied on their living room floor.  

Tired, frustrated hands pushed the hair back off her face, tucking it behind her ear. Samar squeezed her eyes shut and then quickly opened them again, letting out a sigh of miserable annoyance as she tried to reset. Still, nothing new popped out at her from the pages in front of her. By this point, after years now, it felt like nothing ever would.  

The phone strewn across the other end of the table began to buzz with a new, incoming message, making the entire table shake for a moment. Half-heartedly, Samar glanced up, before reaching across for it and wearily flipping it open. The message that stared up at her from that tiny screen finally made the tiniest of smile tug at her lips for the first time all day;

_'Hey, how are you today?'_

One hand swept across the table, pulling all the loose pages and photos back into their folder, and then pushed the folder back into the backpack that housed all of her belongings, as Samar read over that message once more. She shifted her gaze just enough to eye the time in the corner of the screen; 7:43. If any of the occasions she had gatecrashed his apartment in the last few weeks since the first time she had turned up with a pizza were any indication, Aram should have just arrived home from work. The tiny smile on Samar's face widened a little more; there was one thing she could do now after a whole day of trying to solve the mystery that haunted her, that stood the slightest chance of making the day a little better.

/*/*/*/*

'If you're going to keep turning up like this, I should just give you a key,' Aram's gently teasing voice greeted her as soon as he opened the front door to his apartment.    
'I can pick locks,' Samar quipped, all too matter of factly. She pushed past him into the apartment, though the push was gentler this time, far more the move of a friend who knew she was welcome to come straight in and make herself at home, than the assassin who had barged her way in to interrogate him the first time around. 'The knocking is just a courtesy,' she added, as the door fell softly closed behind her. Aram simply shook his head, following her quite contently back inside his own apartment.   
'Thanks,' he murmured, the pitch of his voice rising just enough at the end of the word to make it sound almost question-like, 'I think...' He shook his head again, torn somewhere halfway between genuine amusement and mock exasperation, and Samar simply glanced back at him over her shoulder, breaking into a teasing grin.  

Aram chuckled softly to himself, leading the way back into the kitchen once Samar stopped in the living room. The smell of delicious cooking filled the air and caught her attention now, turning her smile into a far more curious one.

'So... What's this new recipe you're cooking that I _have_ to help you taste test?' She mused. Samar lifted one edge of the lid on the pot that sat simmering on the stovetop, peering inside at the contents as if to answer her own question.  
'It's a sort of chicken stew,' Aram explained, 'with rice, vegetables, kidney beans, paprika, a few Persian spices, and a dash of lime.' He turned on the spot, shooting her a sheepish grin over the bowl of freshly cooked rice he had just set on the counter. 'And you don't _have_ to help me taste test it,' he added, shuffling awkwardly on the spot. 'It just seemed pointless to make a whole stew for one person.'  
'So it's kind of somewhere between a Persian ghormeh sabzi, and a Hungarian chicken paprikash?' The lid was lowered back onto the pot and Samar glanced up at him, eyes crinkling far more eagerly than Aram would have anticipated. He did a double take, staring at her in amused disbelief and not quite sure how to respond to Samar's lightning fast rattling off of different stews. That was her cue to bow her head with her own hint of sheepishness; 'variations of stew is something I've always found everywhere, no matter where in the world I've ended up,' she added, giving a small shrug. A good stew was a comfort; wherever in the world she was, and even on some of her worst days in the last few years, there was always _somewhere_ around that offered some national or regional specialty of stew. There were so many different types, but the foundation was always the same; meat, vegetables, seasoning, and an immensely satisfying warmth in her belly. It was one of the few things that always felt at least vaguely familiar no matter where she was.

It was one of those things that felt far more like home to her now, than any place ever did.

Aram moved across the kitchen to her side, peering into the pot for himself and screwing up his face in contemplation. All of a sudden, the pressure for the new concoction to go well, seemed to double in intensity at the sight of the enthusiasm on Samar's face.   
'I'm not really sure how the lime is going to work with the paprika...' He warily observed. Samar glanced back and forth between him and the pot of still bubbling stew. The smell swirled through the air, filling her nostrils with a scent that she couldn't help but smile at.  
'Well... It _smells_ good,' she murmured.  
'I guess...' Aram trailed off in response, 'and if it doesn't taste just as good, then there's always that new pizza place you wanted to try.' Finally, he broke into a cautious, but all too mischievous grin once more; 'they deliver, I checked.'

/*/*/*/*

The stew ended up being delicious enough that both Samar and Aram had second helpings, and Aram insisted on Samar taking a full tupperware container with her for lunch the next day just as he was planning to as well.  

Samar's now empty lunch container sat on the table in her warehouse hideout alongside the piles of photos and notes scattered across once more. The time between jobs, staring at the puzzle of her parents' killers again was always frustrating, but now that her growing friendship with Aram filled her with a strange sense of personal progress, the lack of progress in the puzzle felt like it was pulling her backwards even more so.  

Four days in a row of unsuccessfully trying to figure it out, and Samar was fairly certain that if she had to stare at those pages for one minute longer, her head was going to explode. With a sigh of absolute, utter frustration, she shoved the closest pages to her, sending them flying across the table. She dug the burn phone out of her pocket and flipped it open, staring once more at the clock in the corner.

If it was a normal day, Aram would still be at work.

That prompted yet another breath of frustration; having little else to do made her feel like time was going backwards. Regardless, Samar opened up the only text thread and began to type. Aram would get back to her as soon as he had a free moment.  
_'Still want to try that new pizza place?'_  Samar typed. She paused before tapping the send button, wondering if there was anything else to add, but ultimately decided against it. After a few weeks now of dinners and sporadic text conversations, Aram had at least a basic understanding of the mystery she was stuck on and how much it frustrated her. He would understand that she simply needed an outlet to move out and about, and look at something other than that endlessly annoying pile of pages.  

Surprisingly, the phone buzzed with response while still held in her hand.  

 _'Sure,'_ it read. Short and to the point, as Aram's messages often had to be while he was still at work and forced to be discreet with their communication, but as per usual he had added a smiley face. Samar paused before responding, hesitating over an idea suddenly popping into mind. Every dinner thus far, had been at Aram's place. That was understandable –after all, for the sake of keeping both their covers they couldn't be seen in public together, but also because Samar had initially been wary of sharing the location of her warehouse hideaway with him. Now though, she was content enough in her trust of him, that she was beginning to toy with that very idea.

Not to mention, her frustration at her lack of personal case progress was making the warehouse atmosphere feel particularly miserable... Maybe, just maybe, Aram would be able to bring back some levity to the space.

 _'Let's change the routine though,'_ Samar quickly typed back, breaking into a wry smile, _'I'll order now... And you see if you can find me.'_ Across the city at the Post Office, Aram paused at the sight of that message, reading it twice over again just to make sure he really was reading what he thought he was reading. To him, the concept was both terrifying –as if she was luring him into some kind of horrible trap- and thrilling all at the same time. It took everything to maintain the neutral expression of someone busily working, rather than breaking into the sort of nervous smile that would alert his co-workers to something else going on, as he hurriedly typed back;  
_'Challenge accepted.'_

/*/*/*/*

Some two hours later, Aram found himself warily navigating the dark, back alleys of DC that he usually preferred to avoid. He had his phone in his hand –the main one, not the burn phone- with directions he had noted down for himself to guide him. So far, nothing threatening had jumped out at him from around a corner or from behind a garbage dumpster, but still Aram wandered the alleys with cautiously tensed shoulders. The simultaneous feeling of terror and thrill still had his stomach twisting in knots. It was almost the feeling of trying to track down the Batcave; both deathly curious and wondering if that really was something he wanted to see. By the time Aram reached what appeared to be the entrance to the warehouse that he suspected was Samar's hideout, his breath was caught in his throat.

Ever so cautiously, he knocked on the door.

Inch by inch, almost as if Samar was still toying with him, the door slowly opened and she peered out at him.  
'I found you,' Aram practically gasped. He broke into a grin that ran wide from ear to ear, his words more an expression of stunned disbelief at the fact, than the sheer announcement of it. A smirk tugged at Samar's lips as she stood back from the door, quickly ushering him inside. Aram stared eagerly around the space, taking in every piece of it. The pieces of furniture scattered around gave a certain element of comfort and the air of a home-like environment, but it was only a mask. The walls were grey, the floor little more than cement, and the plastic dust covers on every surface seemed to be heading above and beyond their call of duty. The light was musty, limited to small corner lamps in only the spaces Samar was using and nothing more, so as not to let too much light flow out onto the street and arouse suspicion. For all the comfort that the endless couches seemed to portray, it was a hollow comfort... The sort of comfort that worked well for Samar's shorter visits, but was more a taunting reminder of everything she was really missing out on if she stayed there any longer.  

Nonetheless, Samar stood in the centre of what seemed to be her preferred end of it all, watching and waiting for his gaze to return to her.  

'How'd you do it?' She asked softly. The grin returned instantly to Aram's face, still inordinately pleased at having found her hiding place.  
'Well...' He began, bouncing on the balls of his feet. 'Tracking the burn phone was a no go, I didn't even bother. What I did try was street surveillance cameras but you seem to be pretty good at avoiding those so you only popped up intermittently-' Aram rolled his eyes in mock exasperation at her triumphant smirk '-but then I remembered that you said something about a furniture warehouse so I searched for those in the area, narrowed it down by those that were surrounded by other abandoned buildings so you wouldn't have curious neighbours accusing you of trespassing, which brought my list down to three that I _then_ narrowed down to one by calculating the distance between those and my place, and comparing it to how much time seems to pass between you texting to say you're on your way, and actually arriving. Then just to make sure I checked the street cameras around this one, and...' Aram suddenly paused in his delighted, non-stop rambling, shooting her an uneasy look.  
'….And what?' Samar prompted. It took everything to hold back the chuckle at his antics and just how proud of himself that he seemed to be over them.  
'And... You missed one,' Aram reluctantly pointed out, 'there's one on the corner two blocks over that you walk straight past every time, when you could go the other way around the block instead. It's longer but there are no cameras.' Samar's eyes went wide in horror.  
'I thought that one was broken,' she grumbled, shaking her head. She muttered something else under her breath too, that Aram was fairly certain he didn't want to hear.   
'Nope,' murmured back, shifting awkwardly on his feet, 'it's a little shaky, but it still works.'

Samar gave a sigh, but shot him a small smile all the same. He could have chosen not to tell her about the camera she had missed, instead keeping an eye on it for himself to track her movements, but he hadn't. For all his FBI agent dilemmas over where their friendship was going, he was being as honest with her as she was with him in sharing the location of her hideout. She took the few steps closer to the table where two boxes of fresh pizza sat waiting for them and picked them up, then turned and strode towards him once more, holding the boxes out to him. Aram's gaze however, was now focused, brow furrowed, not on his prize, but on the piles of pages on the table she was leaving behind.   
'Is that your parents' case?' He asked quietly. Samar bit her lip at the question and at the concern quickly spreading across his face.  
'Yeah...' She murmured, before slowly trailing off. There was nothing else she could think of to say in response. Aram watched her for a moment, wanting to help but not sure if she would want him to make the offer... Before deciding that _he_ wanted to. The case bothered her, and that bothered him. If she didn't want his help, all she had to do was say no and he would leave it be... But he wanted to at least put the offer on the table so to speak, in case he _could_ help. All he had to do was phrase it gently.    
'Do you want a second set of eyes to look over it,' he began carefully, 'while we taste test this pizza?' Samar did a double take, tilting her head quizzically as she contemplated that. She had stared at the case for so long, it felt like she was missing something that was right in front of her nose.   
'Actually...' She mused, offering him a soft smile, 'that would be helpful.'

Silence fell between them for a moment, as they sat at opposite sides of the table, spreading the endless pages around the pizza boxes. Piece by piece, they went over every photo, every note, and every detail, even well after the pizza boxes were empty and pushed to the side.  

Hopefully, the extra set of eyes was all it would take to solve the mystery.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm just about ready to start working on the next section of the story now. It's starting to get exciting... I think the mojo is slowly coming back, folks! *victory dance* :)


	5. Collision Course

The longer Aram sat at his Post Office desk, busily working away, the more and more conscious he became of the burn phone hidden in his pocket that was notably _not_ buzzing with the announcement of an incoming message or call. He was waiting for Samar's signal that she had finally taken down the man who had killed her parents and that she was ok... But that signal never seemed to come.

He had figured out the missing puzzle piece –of sorts- in Samar's mystery not long after she had systematically gone through all her notes and the obstacles in her way over those boxes of pizza a few days earlier. It wasn't so much that she hadn't thought of something, but simply that she didn't have the wider access to government databases that Aram did to investigate those thoughts as thoroughly as she would have liked. The facial recognition and tracking system that Samar had didn't go nearly as far as the one Aram had with his classified, blacksite access levels, and that was precisely what caused her target to continuously drop off the radar every time Samar came close to finding him.  

Curiously enough, Aram's process of tracking the killer down wasn't all that different to how he had found Samar in the first place. While the rest of the taskforce was out in the field and Aram had a moment to run searches out of the view of curious eyes, he took one photo and ran it through facial recognition. Various false identities popped up –driver's licenses, passports, and other such things from all over the world that matched the picture, just as had done when Aram had tried to identify Samar from the background of surveillance footage months earlier. Next, Aram ran the background of each and every ID, looking for financial records, medical records, employment records, travel records, and every other thing that would help determine whether an ID was legitimate or a cover.  

The difference was that this time around, he remembered what Samar had once told him about running his facial recognition search through all forms of border control, rather than the default search that focused on airports.  

With at least a dozen or so different IDs and travel logs that popped up then, it had been time consuming but not too difficult for Aram to confirm that they all belonged to one person, and form an entire map of where that one person had traveled and when. Samar's similar search results had, by contrast, been littered with gaps due to her lack of access, but with their combined knowledge and resources, they had a far clearer picture forming rapidly in front of them. Still, they couldn't figure out what the killer's original identity was –the closest Aram managed to get was a sealed case file from a foreign intelligence agency where the information was redacted- but they certainly could figure out _where_ he was now... And so long as Samar knew where that man was, she could hunt him down and really, _that_ was all that mattered.  

Figuring out where the mysterious killer was however, resulted in not one, but two factors that concerned Aram far more than he would have expected.

Not only did the killer also seem to be in DC right then but as Aram, on whim, compared the killer's travel patterns to Samar's, it seemed that the man who had killed her parents had also developed a curious habit of turning up everywhere she had, and at around the same time.  

It seemed the killer had been tracking her, for far longer than she had ever managed to track him.  

Telling Samar this as soon as Aram saw her next, had been the first time he had ever seen a flash of genuine fear cross her face.  

As far as Samar was concerned, whatever the killer's motives for tracking her were, didn't matter. Whether he was trying to tie up loose ends and wipe out the last remaining member of the family he had destroyed when she was a child, whether he was tracking her because she was tracking him in a move to kill her first rather than the reverse, or whether he was simply tracking her because she was The Phoenix –both a threat, and competition in his line of work- Samar didn't care. What she _did_ care about, was that his threatening presence was looming ever closer, and the time to make her stand was running out.  

Where, when, and _how_ she did that, was not something that either she _or_ Aram wanted him to be a part of.

He had helped her solve the puzzle –already well beyond the depths of everything he wasn’t legally supposed to do- and now Samar was on a mission... To finally take that killer down. The last Aram saw of her, was being allowed to hold her close for a moment and tell her to stay safe, before she had vanished into the darkness of the alleyways, leaving him behind with a burning fire in her eyes that had sent an anxious shiver through his spine.

That had been two days earlier.

She had said she would let him know when she was safe... But still, Aram was waiting.

/*/*/*/*

Barely halfway across town, Samar's eyes flickered slowly open. Everything was blurry at first, but the bright lights, loud noise, and intermittent beeping was unmistakable.  

It was also easily the last place she ever wanted to be.

'Miss,' began a soft, unfamiliar voice that seemed to come from the blurry, moving figure next to her. 'Can you hear me?' Samar groaned under her breath rather than responding, trying to shift in the bed to sit up, but a sudden, searing pain shot up her side. She clutched at the side of her waist, feeling some kind of hospital dressing there as the blurriness finally seemed to fade. 'Careful,' the unfamiliar voice gently warned her, 'you were shot. It's a through and through that missed your organs and we've stitched it up, but it went straight through muscle so it's going to hurt.' Samar stared blankly up at the middle aged doctor who was smiling softly, reassuringly down at her. Everything in her brain felt fuzzy. The memories of the last couple days flashed through her head in short bursts that seemed to be all out of order. All Samar could remember was the confrontation, and the look of sudden recognition on the face of her parents' killer as she and him both reached for their weapons at the same time.  

Everything after that was still a blur.  

'Do you remember who did this to you?' Asked another unfamiliar voice. Behind the doctor and just off to the side, stood another middle aged man, this time in the distinctive uniform of the Metro PD. Samar simply blinked, the words still processing in her brain, without responding. The two men glanced at one another, furrowing their brows. Words were exchanged between them –words that Samar understood but felt too fuzzy to really register- about her not being ready to answer questions yet and needing rest while they tried to identify her in other ways before finally... They both left the room.  

Samar was left alone.

/*/*/*/*

'Hey... Aram?' Ressler's curious voice trailing out of his office took a moment to draw Aram's attention from his computer screen. When Aram looked up, Ressler stood there at the edge of his desk with one eyebrow raised and what appeared to be a standard Bureau memo in his hand. 'Isn't this that woman you thought was that assassin earlier in the year?' He asked. Aram steadied himself rather than allow his eyes to widen in alarm as Ressler handed over the piece of paper. His heart rate still quickened however, as he dropped his gaze to the page; sure enough, it was Samar's face that stared blankly up at him from the photograph on the memo.

And what was worse, Aram noticed as his eyes quickly scanned the words beside the picture, was that it described her as a Jane Doe at a local hospital with a suspicious bullet wound, a single, fake driver's license, and who wouldn't speak a word to the authorities questioning her.  

It was the sort of memo that went out to all Bureau taskforce offices when someone showed up, unidentified, with a questionable wound. The intent was that it would be related to a pre-existing investigation, and that the victim could either be quickly identified that way, or would add to the case somehow –if not both. What felt like a million and one questions ran through Aram's mind all at once –the two most important being how on earth Samar had been shot, and whether that meant she or even _both_ of them, were compromised. The look on Aram's face must have given some indication of his sudden panic, for Ressler took it as agreement to his original question, and fear of the mysterious assassin being real after all.  
'I thought I recognised the face,' he murmured, giving a knowing nod. 'It's been months since you showed us that surveillance footage the first time, but I knew that was definitely her.' He paused, watching as Aram silently nodded, focusing on his own internal panic rather than responding. 'I wasn't sure that The Phoenix was real then, but... First this woman shows up in surveillance footage around one of our cases, and now she's shot not far from our Post Office building? That's one hell of a coincidence. I'm going to tell Metro PD that we'll take the case-'  
'-Wait, _what?_ _'_ Aram suddenly interjected. Ressler recognising Samar's photo was one thing, but choosing to take the case as well? Not only was that unexpected, but it set him even closer to exceptionally dangerous territory.  
'If this Phoenix keeps appearing so close by us, she's either working with Reddington, or she's tracking him somehow,' Ressler replied, 'either way, that’s worth our attention. Come on, you know her stories better than anyone else here. You should come with us.' Aram lifted his gaze from the photo once more, finally taking note of the way Ressler was gesturing at himself and Liz who stood not far behind him, and gesturing for Aram to follow them towards the elevator. Still stunned, Aram gave a wordless nod, shuffling out from behind his desk and after them, all the while endless anxious questions swirled in his brain.  

/*/*/*/*

By the time Ressler and Liz strode through the hospital ward with Aram scurrying terrified on their heels, several hours had passed since Samar had first woken up in the midst of blinking lights and beeping machines. By then, not only were the majority of her memories back and her mind clearer, but word of the FBI taking over the case had also trickled back to hospital staff from Metro PD, resulting in handcuffs attaching her to the bed rails, and security guards being stationed right outside her hospital room door.  

Now, her silence had less to do with fuzziness, and far more to do with not letting anything slip that could incriminate herself.

'Hey,' Ressler greeted the Metro PD officer a few patient room doors down from the one blocked by guards, 'your Jane Doe still down there?'  
'Yes, sir.' The young officer hurriedly nodded. 'And she's still barely said a word since she got here. At first we wondered if she didn't speak English.' Ressler furrowed his brow.  
'How do you know now that she does?' He asked.  
'She won't speak to any officers, sir, or the guards at the door,' the officer quickly explained, 'but every time one of the doctors or nurses goes in there and asks her questions like rating her pain or if she needs the bathroom, she answers. She keeps her words short, but they're still answers... And she always seems to say please and thank you whenever they do anything in there.' The young officer gave a curious shrug. 'A couple of the nurses keep telling me she's the most polite patient they've had all week, and asking why she's in cuffs.' Ressler and Liz swapped wary glances.  
'Trust me, they don't want to know,' muttered the former.   
'That's what I figured.' The young officer shrugged again, before gesturing over his shoulder towards the guarded door with his thumb, 'go on in.'

The feeling of dread in Aram's gut only intensified tenfold as he followed Ressler and Liz onwards past the young officer towards Samar's room. All he could do was continuously remind himself to act as if he didn't know her, and hope that she would do the same. If Ressler or Liz had the slightest suspicion that they did know each other, it would only make things worse for both him _and_ Samar. Aram had to keep reminding himself further still, not to even refer to her by her real name in front of anyone else –after all, as far as Ressler and Liz were concerned, Samar was simply The Phoenix, a deadly assassin and a Jane Doe in the hospital with a suspicious bullet wound. Nobody but Aram had any idea what her real name even was.  The only way he could try to protect her, was to keep _everything_ he knew to himself.

Aram was so preoccupied with those thoughts, that he found himself following Liz and Ressler past the guards into the room, almost before he realised that they had reached the end of the hall.

Fierce, dark eyes challenged Ressler's bright blues the moment he entered the room. They flickered next to Liz, and then to Aram. There was a nanosecond of surprise and recognition as her eyes met his, that timed with a pang of fear rocking Aram's gut, before Samar pulled her eyes from him, refocused on Ressler, and narrowed them slightly more.  

For all her ferocity, Samar looked exhausted, and the pain that seared through her side showed clearly on her face. Aram bit his lip, wanting so desperately to know what had happened since she left him behind in that alleyway and more importantly, to _comfort_ her somehow. Knowing that he couldn't when he could see her in such pain, had him practically bursting at seams, let alone the fact that he had to force himself to appear as normal as possible. To hold himself back from her in that moment went against every automatic instinct Aram had.  

Samar's eyes remained locked on the male, blonde agent in front of Aram who seemed to be leading the group. He and the darker haired woman, it seemed, were two of the co-workers she had heard so much about from Aram, and who had no idea that she and Aram were friends. Behind them, it wasn't hard to see how anxious Aram was either. Samar knew exactly what was bothering him –after all, it was eating away at her inside too. The worlds they had tried to keep apart with their discretion in navigating their relationship, were all of a sudden on the ultimate collision course. Not only was his team set to try and piece together everything she had done in the best part of the last decade, but if they did, Aram would be exposed and his life torn apart now too, just for helping her. Samar gritted her teeth, determinedly bracing herself for the hundred and one questions about to be thrown at her.

She wasn't going to tell them anything. She wasn't going to give Aram's teammates any help in bringing her down.

And, she certainly wasn't going to let them pull Aram into the chaos either.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up; 'Piecing it Together'. I'm finally a full chapter ahead in writing, and another couple in planning. :D


	6. Piecing it Together

Aram was on edge the entire time he sat at his desk, toeing the dangerous line between not doing anything to help build the case against Samar, and not being so effective in blocking it entirely that his team would begin to suspect he was being anything other than helpful as always. With Samar's wound completely stitched up, her first round of IV antibiotics complete, and her doctors satisfied with their observations of her, she was only likely to stay in hospital for one more day at the most before being transferred to a prison medical unit instead.  

And while her case stood no less chance of being thrown out after that point than before it, somehow that transfer felt like the start of a dangerous path to the end in Aram's mind. He was determined not to let it reach that point.

Thankfully, in that sense, all of Samar's precautions over the years were proving useful. Aram's original search result of linking her image to a handful of aliases and their spotty travel history that he had tried to show the team before Samar had ever turned up at his door, now had to be logged in the case file... But he said nothing of running her image against identities used at other forms of border control. Forensics wasn't able to link her to any weapons or crimes, both in the past and in her most recent quest for her parents' killer. The man's body had been found right where Aram assumed Samar had left it, but they couldn't connect her to the bullet lodged within, nor to the gun in his hand. The bullet that had shot her had gone straight through her side, and then through a pile of wood sitting next to a dumpster in that alley, before finally planting itself in the wall behind where she had been standing. By that point, the only trace of blood that remained on it, was so small that it couldn't be used to compare to the sample of Samar's DNA taken at the hospital.  

Samar's financials were proving expertly hidden and nearly untraceable as well, meaning it was almost impossible to connect her to the financials of anyone suspected to have employed her services. By 'almost', of course, was to say that Samar had hidden her records so well, that Aram had genuine reason to recommend to Ressler that they be investigated by a specialist forensic accountant instead of him... But not before he had discreetly added a few layers of extra protection, himself.  

In short, Samar seemed to have most of her bases covered already. All Aram really had to do now was not let slip that he had ever met her before walking into that hospital room a day earlier, and wait out the frustrated determination with which Ressler was insisting on pursuing the case.  

That wait however, was all too anxious.

'We're getting nowhere with this,' Ressler growled under his breath, slamming a file shut with slightly more force than necessary out of sheer annoyance, 'the only weapon in her belongings when she was found, was a knife that the evidence lab says doesn't match any open cases, the only ID on her was one fake driver's license, we can't track her financials, and she won't talk.' Aram glanced up from his desk, warily eyeing Ressler's gritted teeth. 'I can't even figure out what her connection is to Reddington.'  
'He's not giving me any straight answers on that either,' Liz sighed, from the opposite end of the desk directly across from Aram's. She too, was frustrated, though her frustration had tired circles under her eyes, rather than angry, pursed lips. 'He says he doesn't know anything about her, but I get the feeling that's only partly true.'  
'At this point, the only charge I can pin on her is having one fake ID.' Ressler shook his head; he was convinced that the woman they had seen in the hospital was The Phoenix now, and he was adamant that she had to be brought to justice for her crimes. But, the case had him running in circles, and it was seriously starting to get on his nerves. 'But we need to know who she _actually_ is, in order to file the paperwork for it.' Liz shot him a sympathetic look, before suddenly pausing. Her eyes narrowed slightly with the thought of an idea, and wondering whether or not it would work. She turned slightly in her seat, shifting a curious gaze to Aram and making him struggle not to squirm uncomfortably where he sat.  
'She might talk to you,' Liz suggested, breaking into wry smile.   
'What-' Aram began, stammering as his eyes widened in alarm, 'but... I'm not even a field agent and she's, you know, a _very_ dangerous assassin.' He shook his head hurriedly, as if desperately trying to emphasize his point.  
'Exactly,' Liz mused. 'She wouldn't speak to us, but her body language said volumes.' That wry smile on her face made Aram more and more uncomfortable by the second. He adored Liz, but with working Samar's case already being such a delicate dance, her suggestion was far from reassuring. 'She was challenging us, but didn't bother glaring at _you.'_  Liz observed, 'it wouldn't surprise me if she has some level of profiling knowledge, but either way right from the moment we walked in, she didn't consider you a threat.' Aram glanced back and forth between Liz and Ressler, hoping for once, that Ressler's usual hesitation over sending him into the field would kick in again and save him from Liz's idea becoming reality... But the other man simply pulled a face, took a slow breath, and gave his reluctant nod of agreement to the plan.   
'So...' Aram tried to stall now. 'You want me to go and interview her again... By myself?' Liz nodded. Ressler didn't protest. Aram took a deep breath –one, that his colleagues took as simple fear in response to being asked to question a deadly criminal on his own.

The dangerous line he was trying to toe, was about to become even more blurry.  

/*/*/*/*

At the hospital, Samar stared impatiently at the wall of her room. Less than twenty hours on since arriving there, she was bored, frustrated and most importantly, she was desperate to get out. The memories of the day before were all too painfully clear now. She had been so, _so_ close to succeeding in her plan to take out her parents' killer without a hitch.

 _So_ close.

Samar had gone straight to where she knew he was, ready to lure him away from public eyes. For a moment, when faced with him, she had flashed back to that intense terror she had felt when he had passed her as a young girl... But only for a moment. Now she was stronger, smarter, and far more conscious of the world they lived in and all of its darkness. That innocent, young girl was gone.  

She was ready.

For that moment, as she had caught her target's eye, he hadn't recognised her at first. He had followed her into the alleyway willingly, before his eyes had widened with thrill and surprise a second later. A split second after that, and his gun was drawn just as hers was. The shots had fired so in sync that they sounded like one. Her parents' killer had crumpled to the ground in front of her, with her bullet lodged square in his chest... But Samar had no opportunity to feel, no opportunity to take that all in. The excruciating pain of his bullet burning through her side at the same time had replaced that moment of victory with the sudden terror and adrenaline rush of knowing she had to run. She had to move as far away as possible from his body before she couldn't move any further. The blood had been rushing, hot and thick against the hand clamped over the wound in an unsuccessful attempt to staunch the flow... She had known she wasn't going to get far.

Samar had wedged her jacket and her backpack around her side as best she could to keep it covered, and then she had run. She had lasted ten minutes or so –losing count along the way of how far exactly she was managing to move away from the body she was leaving behind- before all vision had gone blurry, her legs had buckled from under her, and the searing pain had taken over entirely.

She had collapsed, in yet another alleyway a few blocks over.  

There was a brief memory of sirens, and of flashing red and blue lights as she had been lifted into the back of the ambulance called by the passers-by who had found her... And after that, the next thing Samar remembered was the middle aged doctor when she woke up in that hospital room.

Without even realising it, Samar let out a frustrated sigh at those glaring, whitewashed walls that now surrounded her. Her only solace was in the fact that at least, for all her fears of what was to come next, the man who had killed her parents was dead. Her joy at that might have been overwhelmingly muted –at least temporarily- but at the very least, her target would never tear another family apart as he had hers.  

'Good morning,' Aram's voice jolted Samar from her staring. His voice seemed strained somewhat, like he was forcing himself to sound distant from her even though he was the only one walking into the room. She furrowed her brow in confusion, opening her mouth to ask what was going on, but Aram quickly raised an anxious hand in a quieting gesture, then pointed at a small device that was barely visible where it sat just inside his ear. Just like that, Samar understood.

He was _there_ alone, but... They were being listened to. The two agents who had come in with him the day before were probably outside in a van somewhere, hearing every word.

'Mind if I sit here?' Aram spoke again, continuing the act of the formal, unfamiliar agent he had been ordered to be. His face, however, screamed the opposite. He bit his lip, eyes wide in concern. His coworkers might have been _listening,_ but they weren't _watching_ ... And silently, he was asking a completely different question; _'are you ok?'_  

As he sat down in the visitor's chair by Samar's bedside, he reached across to gently wrap his hand around hers and give it a reassuring squeeze. Somehow, just like that, seeing her made the anxiety that settled in his gut, slowly start to fade. Samar shot him a soft smile, and locked her fingertips around his –or at least, as best she could at the angle she could reach from where her wrist was still cuffed to the bed rail. It wasn't hard for either of them to understand what that meant either; both of them would do everything it took to keep one another safe from the investigation, long before they would ever willingly let anything slip. The situation they found themselves in was dangerous and had both their stomachs turning somersaults but for the moment, so far, they were ok.

'So...' Aram began again, stalling for a moment as he tried to figure out how they could communicate only through the questions Ressler and Liz wanted answered. 'You're _supposedly_ an assassin... With only a knife as a weapon.' He paused in his musings, shooting Samar a quick, quizzical look. The tiniest of relieved smiles tugged at her lips as she understood what that meant; her knife was leading them nowhere, no old or open cases had been connected to her via fingerprints or ballistics, nor had the firearm she wiped and dumped between being shot and collapsing in another alleyway, been uncovered by law enforcement either. In short, they were struggling to pin anything on her. Aram was curious though; the last time he had seen her, that usual bulge of a weapon had still been visible under her jacket, and now he could only suspect what had happened to it since. Samar's small smile, however, confirmed those suspicions; somehow, she had managed to rid herself of her gun as she always did after a job, to the streets where it was never likely to be found. '…And who can move around without any identification besides one driver's license...' Aram slowly continued. His quizzical expression seemed to twinkle even more with curiosity; he knew for a fact that Samar had that entire pile of fake identities and all of their related documents... But now they weren't anywhere to be found in her bag. Her relieved smile became far more wry at that; her documents were safe, and Aram would surely have his answer soon. The thick envelope that she had kept them in inside her belongings had always been stamped and ready to go for times like these. All she had to do was seal it up, scribble on an address, and toss it into the nearest post box –which she had done while stumbling along bleeding, to the alleyway where she had collapsed. She had been barely holding onto her consciousness by that point, but her documents were safe. It was Aram's address that she had scribbled on that envelope, and where her documents would surely be delivered later that very day, if they hadn't been already. By the time law enforcement figured out to look for her things tucked away in an envelope and sent into the chaos of the mail system –if they ever figured it out at all- they would never be able to track it unless they knew where it was going... And the fact that Aram would be the one to receive it, meant that as soon as he did and realised what it was, he would undoubtedly hide it away, long before his team could ever figure that out.  

Aram eyed that wry smile, not quite sure what to make of it, but deciding to roll with it. Whatever she had done with her documents, Samar was clearly confident that they were safe, and that was all he needed to know.  

'We have agents trying to track your movements and figure out where you were staying,' he spoke again, 'they're not there yet, but they're working on it-' Samar's eyes crinkled at that '-are they going to find your stash there when they raid the place?' That was one question where they both knew the answer; the few belongings Samar had were in the backpack in the hospital room with her. She had replaced the dust covers on the pieces of furniture she had used, and given the place a quick wipe down to remove most of her fingerprints, but it was never going to be possible to replace the dust itself. There would be signs that someone had been there, and it was quite probable that the Bureau forensics team would be able to conclude that _Samar_ had been there, but that was as far as the furniture warehouse would pull the investigation forward.  

At best, if Ressler wanted to pursue that angle, he could try to use it to add one charge of breaking and entering or trespass.  

...But Aram wasn't about to point that out. He had been told to ask the question and he had done so, in the process letting Samar know yet another detail about where the case against her was moving.  

'Want to tell me how this happened? Who shot you?' He rattled off yet another question that Liz and Ressler had sent him along with, only for Samar to bite her lip in the attempt to hold in the amusement at the exasperated look on his face. Silent she stayed, communicating just with her eyes rather than give his colleagues the answers they were after. In Aram's ear, he could hear Liz and Ressler muttering their frustration at the lack of answers, then telling him to wrap up the interview if it wasn't going anywhere. 'You're not going to say _anything?'_  Aram asked once more, letting out an eye roll out of his own amused exasperation at his team. All at the same time he was signaling to Samar what they were telling him, and discreetly asking if there was anything she wanted him to do.  

Actually, as Samar thought about it and her flash of amusement began to fade, there was _something_ she needed him to do before he left...

...Her nose was itchy. And with both of her hands cuffed to the sides of the hospital bed, there was absolutely _nothing_ she could do about it.  

Samar crinkled her eyes shut and wrinkled her nose, hoping that Aram would understand the silent gesture. For a moment, as she opened her eyes again, he stared back at her in confusion... Before finally, his face lit up with the lightbulb moment of realisation, and he warily leaned forwards, reaching out with one finger to gently scratch the side of her nose until Samar's head rolled back against the pillow in the sweet bliss of itch-free relief.  

It took everything for both of them not to let out a chuckle at the ridiculous situation. For all the fear and all the frustration of the line they were walking and the secret they were trying to keep hidden, so long as Aram was there beside her in the room, the only feeling was a certain comfort in each other's presence. Samar squeezed his fingers again –a wordless thank you for all that he was doing despite the awkward position he was in. Aram smiled softly back, reaching forwards to brush the messy, loose strands of hair back off her face and tuck them behind her ear before those became an irritation even worse than the itching.  

Aram paused in the doorway, turning to glance back over his shoulder one last time before he had to leave.  
'We're going to get to the bottom of this,' he observed. That time, his voice was as serious and earnest as a more confident agent trying to intimidate a criminal.

But that wasn't because his team was going to take her down, as Liz and Ressler listening in probably thought it meant.

It was because Aram was certain; Samar would have her freedom back. He wasn't sure _how,_ but he was sure that between the two of them, they would find a way.

/*/*/*/*

What Aram didn't expect, was that Samar's freedom would be found so soon.

Back at his desk again after the interview in her hospital room, Aram was back to trying to find some trail or evidence that he could use to disprove Samar's guilt –or making sure the case was airtight, as Ressler put it. Out of nowhere, the sound of a desk phone being slammed back on its receiver, followed by a range of swear words that weren't nearly as quiet as they should have been, made Aram jump in his desk chair.

Liz raised a curious eyebrow as Ressler marched out of his office, decidedly unimpressed.

'She escaped,' he lamented to the Post Office air rather than anyone in particular. 'The guards outside her hospital room mixed up their shift changeover with her prison transfer, and she made a run for it.' Aram's eyes went wide; he would have thought earlier that Ressler's frustration with the case had already reached its peak, but apparently not. Barely a second later, Ressler and Liz were each making a rapid series of phone calls, sending out alerts to Metro PD, border controls, and everything else to try and stop Samar from leaving the city before they could catch her.

Aram was fairly certain he was supposed to be running facial recognition against live surveillance feeds, or checking the hospital cameras, or _something_... But he was too preoccupied with being frozen in his seat. With her wound, Samar wasn't supposed to move far at all, let alone break out of a hospital. Doing so ran the risk of making her injury even worse.  

And just like that, Aram's fingers went flying across his keyboard. He had to find her –not to help the case move forwards, but to help keep her safe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hmmm... Where, oh where has Samar escaped to? Correct guesses get bonus points!
> 
> Next up; 'Two Way Street'.


	7. Two Way Street

The state of the Post Office response in the face of Samar's escape wasn't quite as intense as when Liz had first gone on the run, but Ressler's wrath nearly was. As far as he was concerned, Samar was a criminal nearly as bad as Reddington, who was doing everything she could to flout the law, and now... She had taken that one step even further by escaping from right under his nose. By the time he reluctantly succumbed to the tiredness of having chased her for hours, and told everyone to go home for the night, the clock was heading rapidly towards midnight. Aram stifled a yawn as he ambled miserably down the building hallway towards his apartment; not that he hadn't half expected it, but he had found next to no trace of Samar on surveillance feeds at all once she had left the hospital. The wondering where she had gone, if she had managed to hide herself or if her bullet wound had provided such an obstacle that she was stuck in another building, laying on the ground in agony, had Aram so anxious that he felt like he was about to throw up.  

Out of sheer habit, Aram pulled his keys from his trouser pocket and reached straight for the door handle as if on autopilot. His fingers moved as if to push the key into the lock... But the handle wasn't there.

Aram froze, jolted from his absent minded autopilot, and glanced down. The door handle _was_ there, but it was pushed an inch or back from where it normally should have sat, and from where his hand had expected to find it.

Not only was the door unlocked, but it was sitting open by the tiniest of cracks.

Aram's heart pounded in his chest as he warily pushed the door just that tiny bit further open enough that he could slip inside his apartment. His eyes scanned the hallway, the living room, and the kitchen, all the while his hands shook. Someone had been inside; a used glass, still half full of water, sat on the bench where Aram knew for a fact he hadn't left it that morning. One dining chair seemed to be turned out of place at the table, as if someone had stopped and leaned on the back of it to hold themselves up. Aram furrowed his brow in confusion as he glanced around the space; his first thought was that someone had broken in to rob the place, but nothing seemed to be missing. He dropped his backpack by the side of the couch and step by step, cautiously continued onwards through the apartment. Room by room, he peered anxiously around doors, looking for intruders or missing items, and internally bracing himself for the former to jump out at him, knocking him over the head with a baseball bat or some other movie cliché. The bedroom was last, and having not found anyone yet had his heart thumping with such intensity that it felt just about ready to pound right out of his chest. Aram took a breath, steadying himself, before warily cracking that door open. He peered inside, not entirely sure that he wanted to, and his eyes went wide. He let out a gasp, pushing the door wide open.

There was Samar, either asleep or passed out, crumpled on the bed, having not even managed to crawl under the covers. Her bag sat sideways on the floor beside the edge, seemingly dropped there on the way down.  

The wave of conflicted feelings washed over Aram in a flash; all at once, he was frustrated that she had strained her injury to leave the hospital and that she had given him such a scare, but he was also overwhelmingly relieved to see her there relatively safe and sound. He wanted to scream or yell or _something,_ to let it all out, but he also didn't want to wake her. He knew she'd had next to no sleep in the last few days, and it would be no surprise to him if the combination of exhaustion and searing pain from trying to reach his apartment from the hospital had been so much that she was crumpled there more from passing out upon arrival, rather than simply falling asleep.  

He had so many questions... But he had to wait.

Aram squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them again. He took another deep breath, trying to slow his heart rate back to normal and figure out what to do next to distract himself until Samar woke up. He worked his way back to the front door and finally closed it, finding the pile of mail on his doorstep that included all of Samar's documents, in the process. He picked up the still unfolded and unsorted laundry pile in the living room and put everything away –mostly at the sudden horror of Samar possibly having seen his underwear sitting on top of the pile in her exhausted ambling past it, even though the more logical voice in the back of his head told him that she would have had other priorities at the time and probably hadn't even noticed it- then hacked into his building's internal surveillance system and replaced all images of Samar's break-in with an earlier feed of an empty hallway and then finally, Aram busied himself in the kitchen. It was just as he began pouring freshly boiled water into mugs of tea for them both, that the sound of unimpressed grumbling from the bedroom prickled his ears.  

The breath caught in Aram's throat as he scuttled back down the hall and knocked softly on the door.

'Hey,' he murmured, warily peeking his head around the door. He let out a soft smile as Samar glanced up, bleary eyed, from the pillow and stared blankly back at him for a moment.  
'I picked your lock,' she mumbled sheepishly in place of greeting.  
'I noticed that,' Aram tried not to laugh in response. The surprise of finding her there was gone now. 'What happened to the courtesy knock?' Samar glared up at him, still too fuzzy with sleep to really follow the conversation.   
'You weren't home and I couldn't wait,' she grumbled. Aram's lip twitched with the affectionate smile he was so desperately holding back. He took a few steps further into the room –his room, technically- setting the fresh mug of steaming tea on the nightstand, before crouching by the bed beside her.   
'You should be in the hospital,' he murmured softly. His gaze swept across her, resting for a moment on her right side where he knew her wound was. Samar blinked a few times before responding, finally taking in the concern in Aram's face as the smell of the tea helped her wake up properly.  
'I couldn't stay there.' Samar pushed herself to sit up, but winced, clutching at her side, and gave up halfway. 'They took my cuffs off, I saw the chance... And I took it.' She paused, letting out a sigh of being caught somewhere between frustration and embarrassment. 'I didn't know where else to go.'

Slipping out of her room with her bag and all the medications that the doctors had left in her hospital room drawer, then managing to move all the way through the hospital and out onto the street before any alarms began to sound at all, had been further than Samar had expected to get. It was also fuelled by the adrenaline rush of trying to get away, and of fighting to stay on her feet while the pain shot through her side with every step. It wasn't until she had ducked a block around the corner from the hospital that the thought occurred to her; _where was she supposed to go?_ Her aliases for airports were blown, and with both her injury and the law enforcement poised to surround the city looking for her, she had no chance to reach any alternative form of border, or even leave the District. She couldn't evade them by going past them –she would never be able to move as swiftly and discreetly as she normally did, until her side was healed. She was confined to the DC city limits, to hiding herself away somewhere close until she was healed, until the Metro PD gave up on the search for her and moved on to something more pressing, and until she could set up new aliases with all the matching documents. Not to mention, right then in that moment, even running just one block away from the hospital had been agony. Aram's apartment was the closest, safest and really, the _only_ place she had been able to think of now that her warehouse hideout was burned as well. By the time she arrived there though, with the extra distance of trying taking alleyways to avoid surveillance cameras and all the police cars zooming through the main streets, the pain in her side was so intense that she was reduced to stumbling. She had navigated the obstacles of Aram's furniture with blurred vision and while fighting the urge to throw up, until she had finally collapsed on the bed. At no point, had she stopped to consider how Aram would feel. At the time, Samar had been operating with little more than the immediate instinct to fight for survival. Now, however, the dread of realisation, guilt, and finally being able to think straight again, rocked her gut. Their friendship was one thing... But asking her federal agent friend to help her fugitive, international criminal self hide, was a completely different level. She met Aram's gaze, biting her lip. 'Are you going to turn me in?'

There was a moment of hesitation, not because Aram doubted what he was about it say in the slightest, but because he _didn't._ Every part of his job description implied that he should turn her in, but every instinct he had told him he never would, and the sheer level of conviction with which he was determined to keep her safe, amazed him.  

'No,' he said, quickly shaking his head. Samar's eyes widened slightly in surprise at the seriousness with which he said it, but Aram simply broke into a soft smile; 'I'm just glad you're safe.' Samar bowed her head as the silence fell between them. She shifted again where she was now half laying down, half sitting, trying to make herself comfortable but not quite able to. 'Here,' Aram spoke quietly again, 'let me help.' He gingerly reached out with both hands as he spoke, gesturing as if to ask whether it was ok to lift her just enough for Samar to move without having to rely solely on her own body weight. He waited for her to give a small nod, before leaning over and wrapping his arms around her waist, helping her sit up. As soon as she was comfortable, Aram sat back on the edge of the bed, his eyes watching her once more with a hint of concern. 'Did you check to make sure you haven't torn your stitches?' He asked. A flash of exasperation crossed Samar's face.  
'It's fine,' she said quickly.   
'Samar.' Aram's voice was gently warning as he spoke. 'It's going to be hard enough to look after that injury here, without it accidentally getting infected because you move too much and tear the wound open again.' Technically, though it would hurt, she was supposed to keep moving rather than laying in bed for weeks on end, but it had to be gentle. Running, stretching, or straining that side by raising her right arm too high or lifting anything too heavy, ran the risk of tearing open her stitches... And if her wound ended up infected, that wasn't something they could treat from Aram's apartment. Either she would have to suffer the infection and any subsequent complications, or she would need medical attention –which would lead to the discovery of her staying there. In short, as frustrating as it was, with stitched up bullet holes both front and back from her through and through, she needed to be careful.   
'I've looked after a bullet wound myself before,' Samar tried to protest, but it was clear that her heart wasn't in it. She was grumpy because she was tired and she was in pain, but they both knew Aram's insistence had nothing to do with her _ability_ to look after the wound. Rather, it had everything to do with the fact that he simply wanted to help, and to make sure that she was getting better rather than worse. Samar let out an exasperated sigh, but a guilty smile eventually tugged at her lips. She pulled up the edge the edge of her shirt, revealing the clear dressing that covered her stitches. Aram furrowed his brow, looking closely at it; it looked a little inflamed from the strain of her running earlier but the stitches, at least, were all intact. 'Happy now?' Samar sighed. Aram glanced up, meeting her gaze again as she allowed the edge of her shirt to fall back in place. The look on her face was nowhere near as irritated as the question would have implied. She wasn't used to having someone who cared enough to make the fuss that Aram did, but despite the overtired crankiness, she was grateful nonetheless.   
'I'll make up the couch and sleep there,' he murmured, letting out a reassuring smile as if to answer her question, 'I'll be up early in the morning to go back to work, but don't worry about that. Just rest as long as you need to.'

Aram couldn't help but reach forwards to gently push those loose strands of hair back out of tired eyes, then tuck them behind Samar's ears as he spoke. She stifled a yawn in favour of offering him a soft smile, then tried to reach over the edge of the bed for her bag. Aram paused long enough to help her pull it up –after all, she could only pull from that angle with one arm- so that she could go digging through its contents for more comfortable clothes to sleep in, before quietly leaving her to it.  

Out in the rest of his apartment, Aram switched off the last few lights that remained on, before stretching out across the tiny amount of space he had left around him on the couch, tugging the blankets up to his chin, and staring up into the darkness, silently contemplating the developments of the day until his eyes couldn't hold themselves open any longer.

/*/*/*/*

A loud thump followed by an almost equally loud yelp of pain from the living room, woke Samar with a jump. Wincing, but otherwise ignoring the pain in her side, she pushed herself out of the bed and stumbled along the dark hallway towards the living room as fast as she could.  

 _'Aram,'_ she gasped as she switched on the light and instantly realised what had happened. Another wince went hand in hand with lurching forwards towards Aram, where he was pushing himself up off the floor and back onto the couch after rolling off in his sleep, ultimately smacking his head on the floorboards.   
'I'm ok,' he quickly tried to insist, before she strained herself any further by trying to help him up. Aram sank back into the couch with a soft groan, and rubbed the spot towards the side of his forehead that now made his whole head feel like it was pounding. Samar eyed him warily, then decided to ignore _that_ particular assessment of the situation. She turned on the spot, being careful _not_ to strain her side as she crossed the room to the kitchen, pulled a small bag of frozen peas from the freezer, wrapped it in a tea towel, and then hobbled back again. Slowly, she lowered herself to sitting on the couch beside him, holding the improvised cold pack up to his forehead.   
'Hold this right here, and don't move it,' she ordered –albeit gently.  
'Samar-' Aram tried to interject, but Samar cut him off.  
'-Hold it,' she repeated, more firmly this time. With a small sigh, Aram bowed his head and did as he was told... And then his eyes went wide in awkward, embarrassed alarm.  
'Um...' He began. He had no idea where to look, and instead squeezed his eyes shut. 'Samar, you're not wearing any pants.'  
'Excuse me for coming running instead of stopping to find my pants, because I was more worried about _you_ when I heard the crashing noise, than my modesty,' Samar replied drolly. Her usual outfit of choice for sleeping in was an oversized t-shirt and soft, cotton sleep shorts, but the latter had an elastic waistband that sat in the particularly uncomfortable spot right where her stitches were... And so she had opted to sleep solely in the shirt and her underwear. Samar rolled her eyes in mock exasperation at the way Aram seemed so concerned about potentially looking at her legs. Really, that was all he could see. Her shirt was long enough that it more than covered everything else, but of course Aram was going to feel guilty anyway. 'Aram,' Samar spoke again, trying not to laugh, 'relax. You'd see more if we were at the beach.'

One eye opened and glanced past the cold pack at her again, almost as if Aram was wary of being slapped in the face for doing so. The other eye opened a second later, to see Samar staring back at him, with one wry, expectant eyebrow raised. She shook her head in exasperated amusement at the sheepish grin on his face, then turned her attention back to his forehead. In his surprise at her apparent lack of pants, Aram had allowed the cold pack to slip slightly, revealing an impressive shade of purple right along part of his hairline. Samar shook her head again, running a gentle thumb across the purple patch to assess the swelling.   
'I thought I was supposed to be looking after you,' Aram observed, craning his neck around her grasp in the attempt to shoot a suspicious look at the side where he knew that clear dressing sat under her shirt. 'Not the other way around.'  
'Well,' Samar muttered, not even trying to hold back the smirk, 'I know it's been a few years for me, and maybe things have changed-' the smirk widened into a wry smile '-but last I checked, in a healthy friendship, this looking-after-one-other thing was supposed to be a _two_ way street.'

Aram raised his eyes to the ceiling and grumbled something unintelligible under his breath that only made Samar smirk all the more so. She had him there, and Aram knew it. She had also caught up on a few more hours of sleep and was now much more awake than their earlier conversation, despite it being well into the middle of the night by now. The dry sense of humour he knew and loved was back, and Samar was on a roll.

Silence fell between them for a moment, as Aram found himself unable to counter her argument. His exasperation gave in, and he broke into a sheepish grin, holding up the cold pack for himself once more. Samar's wry smile slowly faded, finally replaced a more contemplative expression.  
'You can't keep sleeping on the couch-' Samar finally spoke up, until Aram instantly interjected.  
'-I'm not taking the bed, _you_ need the bed-' he tried to protest, but Samar wasn't finished.   
'-The couch isn't big enough, you'll just _keep_ rolling off again-'  
'-You need a mattress with proper support or you'll tear your stitches-'  
'-You're lucky you bumped your head on the floor and _not_ on the corner of the damn coffee table.' They finished speaking over each other at the same time, staring back at one another in a twisted mix of both concern and utter frustration. Once more, the air between them fell silent, and they continued the apparent staring competition, locked in a battle of wills. One of Samar's eyebrows slowly –and drolly- rose, causing a breath to catch in Aram's throat, wary of whatever was about to come next.  
'Well...' Samar began, before teasingly trailing off. 'We could always _share_ the bed,' she suggested. Aram instantly opened his mouth to protest about privacy or politeness, or wanting to be a gentleman or _something,_ but Samar raised one hand in a quieting gesture, waggling her eyebrows and trying desperately to stifle a grin as she spoke again, cutting Aram off before he could even start; 'I'll even keep my hands to myself, I promise.' 

It was almost impossible not to laugh at the look of utter exasperation that crossed Aram's face the second his mouth fell closed again.  

He was simply wanting to make sure she was comfortable, rather than feeling forced to share a bed if she didn't want to.

Clearly though, Samar felt _no_ such discomfort.  

'You're not worried about _my_ hands?' Aram asked warily. Inside, all he could do was thank the universe for the fact that his head had finally stopped pounding after its bump, because it appeared that Samar's amusement at the entire situation wasn't going _anywhere_ in a hurry. Instead, she gave a nonchalant shrug, peeking over the improvised cold pack at the small, purple patch on his hairline once more.  
'Your hands type things,' she mused, breaking into a particularly mischievous grin; ' _my_ hands could kill you, and make it look like a complete accident.'

Aram gave a sigh, shaking his head in amused exasperation. He pushed himself up off the couch, then quickly helped Samar back to her feet as well before following her back through the apartment towards the bed in question, still shaking his head the entire way.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shoutouts to Saramshipper223 and my Best Anon Ever for correct guesses in last chapter's round of 'Guess Whimsy's Nonsense'!
> 
> Next up, 'My Roommate, The Fugitive'... And I can't think of anything super interesting story-wise to turn into a fun guessing game this time, so let's just go with this; who's going to make breakfast, and who's going to make dinner? I feel like that's a tricky one, so more bonus points if you guess it correctly!
> 
> And sidenote -I have a very busy couple of weeks coming up, with the next two weekends in a row away in the middle of nowhere, so updates might be a little sporadic. I will get back to them ASAP though! :)


	8. My Roommate, The Fugitive

Once again during the night, barely more than an hour after curling up side by side next to Aram, Samar awoke with a jump. This time, however, it had much less to do with a thump noise in the living room, and all the more to do with the sound of a gunshot inside her head. Samar sat up in an instant, gasping for the second time in barely as many seconds as the sudden, lurching movement pulled at her injured side. She wrapped her arms around her knees and took a deep breath –anything, to calm herself and try to forget those images that had shaken her so. It took a moment, of silence and deep, controlled breathing, before her heart rate finally began to slow again.  
'Samar?' Still half asleep with his back to her, Aram's pillow-muffled voice broke the silence.   
'I'm fine, go back to-' Samar quickly whispered, as Aram moved to roll over.   
'-What's wrong?' He mumbled, cracking one eye open before Samar could even finish.   
'It's nothing,' Samar sighed back. She took another breath, pushing the hair back off her face as she spoke. Aram's other eye flickered open, quietly studying her tensed shoulders and weary eyes that were only just visible in the darkness of the bedroom. Her wide awake, dry humour was gone again, now replaced not with her tired grumpiness, but with a more miserable expression. Aram knew what that meant –and it wasn't just that he was awake, and not going back to sleep again in a hurry.  
'I get them too, sometimes,' he murmured slowly, 'the dreams-' Samar turned her head, glancing at him in surprise at how easily he had guessed '-probably not as bad as yours, though.' Aram dropped his gaze to the bed covers, his own shoulders sinking too as he thought back on the demons that had haunted his dreams time and time again. Samar tilted her head; the brief flash of embarrassment was already fading, and she reached out across the bed to rest a gentle hand against what seemed in the dark to be his arm.   
'Bad dreams are still bad dreams,' she replied softly, 'everyone has different things that haunt them.' Aram glanced up again; through the darkness, the soft smiles were barely visible –but they matched all the same. His finger slid across the bed covers, gently intertwining with Samar's.   
'What can I do to help?'

Samar shook her head. There was nothing really that he _could_ do, no matter how badly Aram wanted to help.

'Normally, I just walk around for a few minutes to clear my head, but...' She trailed off. The thought basically explained itself without need to finish the sentence; with her injured side, and the small bump to Aram's head, walking around for a minute or two wasn't worth the effort it would take both of them to get out of bed. With another sigh, she allowed herself to slide gently back from sitting up, until she was laying on her side, just propping her head up off the pillow with one hand. Aram shifted slightly, where he was already on his side, staring back across the space at her.    
'Tell me about the dream,' he murmured. Still, his fingers wrapped loosely around hers, where both their hands lay on the covers between them.  Samar hesitated before responding, no longer quite so embarrassed, but still uneasy.  
'Usually…’ She slowly began to explain, ‘they’re a mix of when I was young and my parents were murdered, and whatever happened most recently-’ she paused, steadying herself '-this time I saw myself in that alleyway facing off against the man who killed them, but instead of me as I am now, I was little again. It's usually the noise of the gunshot in the dream that makes me jump and wake up.' The breath caught in her throat as she realised; that was the first time she had told anyone that before –not that it was such a surprise. After all, she hadn't had anyone to tell in a long time, either. What did surprise her though, was how it felt. Once the apprehension about potential judgement subsided, it felt as if a substantial weight was free from her shoulders. It didn't matter how quickly Samar was adjusting to sharing every other new thing with Aram; that, for some reason, felt different. The breath in her throat released slowly, and Samar sank a little further back into the bed. Now that she was calmer again, the adrenaline rush of waking with a jump was gone, and her eyes were struggling not to flicker closed once more. 'What about yours?' She asked, even quieter this time through a stifled yawn.   
'They're usually about the cases I work,' Aram replied, his voice barely audible now. 'The really bad ones, or the ones where people on my team were hurt...' He trailed off for a moment, and felt Samar's grip around his fingers tighten slightly. 'A few years ago now, a man broke into our building and had an entire team lock it down. Ressler's leg was badly injured. He could have died if we hadn't managed to call in the cavalry when we did.' In the darkness, Samar could feel the movement in the covers beside her, as Aram rolled and dejectedly half buried his face into his pillow. 'I killed a man that day, too...' He added, and Samar could hear the breath catch in his throat. 'It still bothers me.'

Silence fell between them for the last time. Each shuffled across the bed, closer to the other –both too sleepy for it to really register in either of their minds that Samar's head fell to rest against Aram's shoulder, while his arm wrapped loosely around her side. Finally, both sets of eyes flickered shut...

...And at last, neither woke with a jump again.  

/*/*/*/*

By the time the daylight began to trickle in through the crack in the curtains, Aram was already up and getting ready for work. Samar gingerly pushed herself up out of the bed, yawning, but otherwise smiling softly at the sounds of the coffee machine and Aram humming to himself in the kitchen. She crossed the room, reaching for the door handle, and then paused suddenly. Her smile twisted into a smirk as she thought back to the night before.  Moving carefully so not to strain her side, she took the few steps back towards her bag, and rummaged through the contents within until she found her yoga pants and gently tugged those on.

There, that would save Aram a repeat of his earlier embarrassment over her lack of pants, and the waistband didn't quite sit at the same level as her sleep shorts, meaning it wouldn't irritate her stitches either.  

With that out of the way, Samar finally ambled down the hall towards the kitchen. There, she found Aram already dressed –besides the tie still hanging loosely around his neck rather than tied- and scurrying around the kitchen, putting together a last minute breakfast before having to go running out the door. The original bruise along his hairline was already starting to fade –showing that the bump wasn't as bad as first thought, much to Samar's relief- and was now hidden easily by Aram's thick hair.  

'Morning,' Samar mused. Aram jumped, having not heard her stop at the edge of the counter, and turned in an instant to glance back at her, with a goofy grin lighting up his face.  
'Hey,' he beamed, 'you're awake.' He glanced back at the pan on the stove top that he was accidentally blocking from view, just for the moment it took to flip what appeared to be one last pancake onto a plate and then turn off the flame, before turning around once more to face her properly. 'I was wondering if I'd see you before I left... I didn't want to wake you.' What Samar didn't realise, and Aram wasn't sure if he should mention, was that when he first woke up, they had been wrapped tightly around one another in a fashion he couldn't describe in any way other than cuddling, plain and simple. He had been frozen for that first second of realisation, not really sure how to feel or what to do about it. To a certain degree, it had been kind of nice but at the same time, Aram had been fairly certain that he wasn't supposed to be enjoying the sudden and unexpected closeness –whether Samar had put herself there in her sleep, or not. Ever so carefully, so as not to wake her up, he had disentangled himself from her and quietly crept out of bed instead, leaving her to continue sleeping in peace.  

Samar eyed the plate of pancakes in his hand, and the notepad on the counter that was ready and waiting to leave her a note in case she was still asleep when he left. She glanced back and forth between both the plate, the notepad, and Aram in turn, raising a quizzical eyebrow.  

'You made me breakfast?' She asked, shaking her head in amazed disbelief. Aram shuffled awkwardly back and forth on the spot, berating himself internally for the choice and still wondering if the decision to make her something had been too forward. The _intent_ had been to save Samar the trouble of moving around the kitchen more than necessary, but while he was familiar with her tastes in dinner by now, breakfast was an entirely different set of menu options to choose from. Pancakes had been the obvious and safe choice –Aram knew few people who didn't enjoy a good stack of them, unlike eggs where people could be picky about how they were cooked- but it also seemed a particularly _boyfriend_ kind of move. Regardless, and lacking an alternative option, he had done it anyway.  
'I did, yeah...' He bit his lip, still unsure of the decision, but Samar simply grinned and cautiously hopped up onto one of the barstools opposite him. 'Though, I have to go in a minute, but here-' Aram pushed the plate across the counter towards her as if to prompt her to tuck in, grinning sheepishly again, before panning his gaze quickly around the apartment, making sure he hadn't forgotten anything. 'Ok, and um,' he suddenly began again, twisting his fingers lightning fast around his tie until it hung neatly –well, mostly- around his neck once he was satisfied that everything else was done, 'we should probably get our story straight just in case my neighbours or my landlord happen to see you and ask questions-' without even pausing the sentence, Aram scurried across the room, scooping up his backpack and swinging it over his shoulder '-I mean, not that they're likely to see you, but if they do they'll ask you and then they'll call me to make sure you are who you say you are instead of some robber, and old Mrs Lund next door is particularly nosy, so-'  
'-So it's probably useful to have a story, just in case,' Samar calmly finished Aram's otherwise non-stop rambling so that he could actually draw breath. She took a bite of her pancakes, nodding in complete agreement with the plan. To Samar, and unlike Aram's anxiety over the concept of needing a cover story which was completely new and unusual for him to the point of feeling the need to explain _exactly_ why, having a story ready and sitting on the backburner for just in case was a completely normal process.    
'I guess... We could say you're my sister who's staying with me for a while, or something?' He suggested, shifting uneasily on the spot again.   
'And if it's your landlord who happens to ask, and who knows you only have one bedroom? Or if it's a friend who stop by unannounced, and who's seen your family photos?' Samar countered –albeit gently. 'It would be easier to say I'm your girlfriend-' Aram's eyes widened slightly at that, but Samar took no notice '-that way nobody will raise an eyebrow if they realise we're sharing a bed, and we only have to think of a more recent shared history to talk about, rather than have everyone wondering why I'm missing from all your childhood stories.'

Aram stared at her, dumbfounded. He wasn't sure what astounded him more; how matter of fact Samar was about the whole cover story, or how easily it came to her.  

'That, uh... Came to you fast,' he observed, almost warily. Samar however, simply smirked and offered a nonchalant shrug.    
'I've been travelling under false identities and making up background stories on the spot for years,' she pointed out, 'I know what works and what doesn't, it's habit.'  
'Right...' Aram shuffled awkwardly on the spot again. 'Girlfriend it is, then.' He broke into a nervous grin, reassured only by the way Samar continued to nod her agreement as if it were the most natural and obvious choice of plan, all the while still nibbling contently at her pancakes, completely unperturbed. 'Ok, now I definitely have to go,' he added, the urgency creeping into his voice, 'or I'm going to be late.'  
'Go,' Samar nodded again, reaching across the counter with one hand to gratefully squeeze his, but otherwise urging him to go. 'I'll be fine.'   
'Take care of yourself, and make sure you rest,' he instructed, turning on his heel ready to scuttle towards the door. He glanced once more at Samar –who was still nodding, and waving him away- somewhat unconvinced, but reluctantly began to move anyway.  

Going to work at an FBI blacksite, knowing he had a fugitive at large sitting contently at his kitchen counter, enjoying a stack of pancakes...

_...That was a new one._

/*/*/*/*

The first hour or two after Aram left for work, passed quickly. Between trying to wash up her breakfast plate, showering, getting dressed, and trying to reorganise her bag so that she could reach everything inside a little easier –all the while having to move slower and more gently than Samar was used to so as not to strain her side- she wasn't exactly at a loss for things to do.

After that was out of the way, however, Samar found herself suddenly stumped.

She had no new jobs to start researching, she no longer had her parents' case to puzzle over, nor could she go for a run or do any other kind of real exercise. In fact, given the fact that every law enforcement officer in the city knew what her face looked like since her escape from the hospital, Samar could barely even leave Aram's apartment at all. She was trapped there, at the very least until other cases overtook hers, and she was healed enough to move.  

And that was going to take _weeks._

At first, Samar found herself nosing about the apartment out of sheer curiosity, gazing amusedly at Aram's pet turtle through the glass of its tank, and then perusing each and every title on his bookshelf. Eventually, after that next hour passed so slowly that it felt like time was going backwards, the cheerful mood Samar had woken up with, vanished and wound up replaced by anxious frustration spiralling around in her brain. The wondering of what she was supposed to do with her free time, turned into wondering what she was supposed to do with, well, the rest of her life entirely.

She had never grown up expecting to end up as one of the world's most deadly assassins. She had joined Mossad with the strong desire to do something good for the world, only to find herself on the path of crime, and with no return. Really, all she had ever wanted was to take down that one man who had killed her parents, while taking on hits had simply become means to that end. For a while, it had felt like she would never rest until he was gone... But now, he was. And now that Samar finally had the time to sit back, unbothered by law enforcement investigators, and reflect on the events of the last week or so, the less enthused she was about going back to the day to day life of researching people and killing them –the life that she had always hoped would make her feel better, but never really did. With her ultimate goal achieved, everything else now felt pointless. But then again, she could never go back to Mossad either.  

In short, faced with the boredom and trying to figure out what to do with herself, Samar honestly had no idea _what_ she wanted anymore... _At all_.

She flopped –as gently as she could- onto the couch, letting out a frustrated sigh as she reached for the television remote and began half-heartedly flicking through the channels...

It was going to be a _long_ afternoon.  

/*/*/*/*

It didn't take Aram long to realise the same dilemma of Samar needing something to do. It was around lunch time, as he sat at his desk, picking at his packed lunch while he ran a few algorithms, that he began to wonder how Samar was, and what she was up to... And the fact that she really had nothing much to do, was the next realisation that came barely seconds later.

By the time Aram found himself trekking the all too familiar path back through his apartment building towards his own front door, he was starting to grow concerned that she might have gone completely stir-crazy... But a few feet shy of the door, he paused. Aram furrowed his brow; there was a distinct smell of cooking floating through the air but for once, it didn't seem to be the usual cooking smells that often came from his neighbours' apartments. The closer he moved towards the door, the stronger he could smell the scent wafting towards him. Curiously, Aram slipped through the front door and headed towards the kitchen.

There was Samar, pulling a baking dish of something fresh and steaming, straight out of the oven.

Aram darted forwards, reaching out to give her a hand, but Samar already had it covered. He peered over her shoulder as she set the dish on the counter, shaking his head in amazement.  
'You made _lasagna?'_ He observed, breaking into a wide grin. Aram inhaled deeply; the delicious smell that steamed from the dish in visible spirals through the air, was almost overwhelming.    
'Mmhmm,' Samar hummed back. Between her usual hideouts only having the most basic of kitchens, if they had a kitchen at all, and the fact that cooking solely for herself seemed so pointless, it wasn't often that she really had the chance to cook no matter how much she enjoyed it. Now however, it was one of few things she could think of to do while stuck in Aram's apartment, and one of the even fewer things again that she could manage to do without straining her injury. So long as she avoided heavy lifting, and anything on shelves higher than her head –from which, Aram had already moved anything she might want, just to be safe- the moving around the kitchen was certainly exhausting, but it wouldn't do her any real damage.  

Not to mention, she figured that if she had essentially gatecrashed Aram's place, and he managed to make her pancakes for breakfast around his long work hours, the least she could do was occasionally share her love of cooking and make dinner.  

'It smells _good,'_ Aram breathed. He refrained himself from checking for the millionth time that Samar hadn't pulled at her stitches while moving about the kitchen –as concerned as he was, he was also fairly certain that she was already tired of him asking. Instead, he grinned as he watched her expertly slice the dish's contents into serving size squares.  
'I would hope so,' Samar replied, trademark smirk tugging at her lips. 'I learned this recipe while on a job in southern Italy-' she next reached for the flipper that sat just across the counter from her, then slid it down the edge of the baking dish to lift one square at a time out onto plates '-I ended up having to stay for a few days with the elderly woman who hired me... Her husband had already passed, all her kids were grown up and had their own kids that she didn't have the chance to see as much as she wanted to. I think she relished having someone else in the house for a while that she could cook with and teach all her recipes.' The smirk softened into a thoughtful smile as she reflected back on the few days spent that old fashioned kitchen, learning everything one would ever want to know about pasta and then some –all from the little, old woman who looked fragile enough to break with a feather, yet still seemed to bounce constantly on the balls of her feet with adoring glee.  

As Samar carried each plate one by one to the dining table, she only hoped that after years of no practice, she could still do the recipe justice.  

Aram ducked across the room just long enough to drop his backpack by the edge of the couch, before darting back to the kitchen again to fill glasses of water for each of them and carry those along to the table too. They sat opposite one another, Samar closing her eyes and sighing in deep contentment at her first bite that was never going to be as good as that made by her elderly instructor, but was _definitely_ as good as that she had once made herself. Aram closed his eyes at his own first bite, amazed by the flavour being even better than more overwhelmingly delicious than the smell. They savoured their dinner in silence a little longer, both all too engrossed in the warmth making them feel cosy inside, and the internal debates going back and forth in both of their heads.  

It was Samar who broke the silence first.  

'Hey, so...' She cautiously began, glancing warily across the table at Aram. 'How long exactly were you thinking I would stay here?'  
'I didn't really think about it...' He trailed off in response, suddenly raising a curious eyebrow. 'Why?' Samar hesitated before responding, shifting uneasily in her seat.   
'I'm injured, my aliases are compromised, and every cop in the city is looking for me,' she pointed out, 'I'll try to get out of your hair as quick as I can, but finding somewhere else I can hide isn't going to be easy.' Aram furrowed his brow in confusion.  
'So just stay here,' he said. The tone was matter of fact; if anything, he didn't understand why that wasn't already the plan. It certainly seemed the most obvious plan to him... But apparently, Samar was far more concerned about overstaying her welcome.   
'Aram-' she tried to start. There was a grateful, but reluctant look on her face that said everything. In the adrenaline and pain fuelled adrenaline that had initially led her to his apartment, she hadn't thought for a second about just how long she would be trapped there, until the boredom of the day had brought every possible doubt back to her mind, and now she felt guilty. Staying for a day or two, or maybe even three seemed fair enough, but several weeks seemed far too long to simply _expect_ Aram to be ok with.    
'-Why not?' Aram spoke over her, more insistent this time. Between him making breakfast, her making dinner, and both of them looking after each other through the night, if anything... It was nicer to have her around, than stay in the silence and loneliness of his apartment on his own.  'Nobody's looking for you here, and I don't mind how long you stay.'  
'You say that now but Aram, it could be _weeks,_ or maybe even longer before it's safe for me to get out of the city.' Samar shook her head, letting out a frustrated sigh. 'The novelty of having me here will wear off in a few days.'

Aram however, broke into a shy, mischievous grin, glancing up and down between Samar and the plate in front of him that was now notably empty of his first helping of lasagna.  

'...Not if you make the lasagna again, some time,' he quipped, before his face suddenly crumpled. 'I mean, not that you have to make dinner because you definitely _don't,'_ he hurriedly added, but the grin couldn't stop itself from still tugging at his cheeks; 'but this is just _really_ good.'    
'Then...' Samar began, finally breaking into a wry smile, 'I guess I could stay a little longer.' Slowly, and with a hand on the edge of the table to support herself, Samar rose from her seat, aiming for another helping from the baking dish that still sat a few feet away on the counter.   
'My roommate, the fugitive,' Aram chuckled to himself, quickly moving to follow. Samar glanced over her shoulder back at him with a mischievous grin of her own as she replied;   
'That definitely has a nice ring to it.'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shoutouts to Saramshipper223, my Best Anon Ever, and BJames (on ffnet) for correct guesses in last chapter's round of 'Guess Whimsy's Nonsense' -Aram made breakfast and Samar made dinner!
> 
> Next up, 'Boredom, and Other Dilemmas'... And because what I thought was going to be a hard question last week, actually seems to have been a way too easy question, let's see if I can stump you all with this one; in this fic, which of the TMNT is Aram's pet turtle named after?


	9. Boredom, and Other Dilemmas

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the delay in posting this one. I've been both quite busy, and feeling somewhat disheartened with this fic, and I didn't want to post this chapter without having the next one already finished. As it turns out, Chapter 10 still isn't finished, but I did manage to write about half of it yesterday, so I figured I could put Chapter 9 up today. 
> 
> I also managed to rearrange my notes for what I want to happen with this story through until the end, so they're in order, in more of a chapter-by-chapter format. I'm not sure if that'll make it easier considering that I still feel super unmotivated with this one, but here's to hoping. Based on those notes, it's looking like it'll finish up around 14ish chapters or so.
> 
> Anyway... Here we go.

It had been Friday that Aram had first visited her warehouse hideout, the weekend that he had spent helping her research, and Monday that he had finally found the answers at his office desk, then delivered them to Samar and watched her walk away. It was Tuesday that she was shot and found, Wednesday that Aram interviewed her in the hospital before she escaped, and Thursday that she woke up to his pancakes.  

Samar was still bored. It was only supposed to take a few days for her wounds –front and back- to show fragile healing at the skin level where the most obvious stitches were, but it would be a couple of weeks for damaged muscles within to do the same. And after that, even though technically healed, her side would be lacking its usual strength. It would be at least a month before she could resume her usual range of movement without worrying about tearing her muscles again... And while she waited -and lacked the energy her body sapped from her for healing- the boredom and tiredness was borderline infuriating.  

Making dinner was a highlight of the day –one of a small handful of energetic bursts that she savoured- but though Samar's body was tired, her brain was _always_ alert and wanting things to do.  

When it came around to Friday again, Samar was so bored resting on Aram's couch while he was at work, she resorted to figuring out how to use his Xbox -something she had never used before, and didn't have the first clue how to operate- until she went so far that she beat every last one of Aram's high scores in both _Call of Duty_ and _Grand Theft Auto_. Both were easy for her once she figured out how to use the controls –after all, she had done more than enough of the real life versions.  

Aram, needless to say, was both _mortified_ when he came home from work and found all his scores beaten by a long shot, and simultaneously amazed by her scores that were so high he never would have thought them possible. Between all of Samar's tired grumbling about how completely unrealistic the games were and how she had persisted in beating them just to spite the ridiculousness of it all, she did pause to answer all of Aram's questions and how explain her strategies to score so many points... And _that,_ at least, helped his horror begin to fade.  

But, both of them were still all too glad for the weekend, where Aram would be home to both keep Samar entertained, and stop her from wreaking any more havoc.  

...And still, they had weeks of the stir-craziness yet to go.  

On Saturday morning, with Aram not heading into work for once, his alarm clock was switched off. After the busy week, he slept in as Samar did to the point that she, unexpectedly, woke up before he did. It took a moment before the fuzziness of sleep faded from her brain and she realised... She was practically sprawled on top of him. Aram, still sound asleep, was laying on his back while Samar was half curled around him and half on top, with her head and at least one shoulder resting on his chest. He had one arm around her, hand resting in the comfortable and safe curve of the small of her back –no higher and certainly no lower- as if in his sleep, he had realised the need to keep her supported there so as not to strain her side or allow her to roll off unexpectedly and hit her side too hard when landing back on the mattress again with a thump. Amazingly, in their combined slumber, they seemed to have found themselves the most comfortable position... But Samar was still uneasy. They weren't a couple, she was staying at his place both free of charge and without him turning her in, and yet it seemed that she had completely invaded his personal space. Gingerly, and trying not to wake him, Samar disentangled herself from his arm, and shifted back to her own side of the bed.  

And then she wondered... On the last two mornings where Aram had been the first to wake up, had she been wrapped around him then too?

He certainly hadn't said anything, but then again, Samar was fairly certain he would have chosen to keep his mouth shut and let her remain blissfully ignorant rather than making her uncomfortable by pointing it out.  

Samar added that to her ever-growing list of dilemmas.  

/*/*/*/*

Saturday's breakfast was more a joint affair. While only two days had passed previously where Aram had made breakfast and Samar had made dinner, somehow that setup worked well enough that both of them felt like it was already becoming the weekday routine. For the weekends when Aram was home however, moving around in the kitchen together was a completely different joy. Pajama-clad, casual banter over the fry pan the toaster, and the coffee machine, not to mention actually being able to sit and eat their breakfast together, without feeling the rush of getting ready for work, felt exceptionally domestic and yet, oddly pleasant.

For that moment at least, the list of dilemmas could be pushed to the back of Samar's mind easily.  

She grinned as she watched Aram scurry from the kitchen towards his turtle tank, and take the time to gently scratch the tiny reptile under the chin before moving it over to the smaller feeding tank. On days where Aram was rushing to work, he couldn't always spend as much time as he would have liked doting on his turtle but on the weekends, it seemed, he was intent on making up for it.  

'Does your turtle have a name?' Samar asked, glancing curiously across from the dining table. Despite her having observed the creature on and off over the last two days, Aram's work hours had limited their potential conversation time to far more pressing matters. The turtle's name had not made that list –yet another reason they were both glad to see the weekend. Aram dropped the freshly prepared turtle breakfast into the feeding tank, not quite taking his eyes off the turtle until it slowly began to chomp at the nearest piece of shredded carrot.   
'Leo,' he replied, finally glancing back over his shoulder and shooting her a quick grin.  

Samar paused, breaking into a smirk of distinct amusement.  

'...Did you name him Leo because you couldn't keep a lion in your apartment?' She asked drolly. Aram rolled his eyes in mock exasperation, before directing them back to the little turtle in question.   
'It's short for Leonardo,' he scoffed –albeit whilst still grinning. 'You know, like in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?' There was a pause, where Samar's only response was to raise a quizzical, confused eyebrow. She had never heard of such a thing before. Aram glanced back yet again, momentarily surprised by the silence. 'It's a comic book and TV series that I _loved_ when I was a kid,' he quickly explained, 'and Leo's the same kind of turtle that the main characters all were.' Donatello would have been the more obvious choice to name his turtle after, being the techno-whiz and smartest in the TMNT team, but Aram couldn’t quite bring himself to give his pet the sort of name where the short form, Donnie, was so close to the name of a co-worker. Leo, on the other hand, was the leader of the TMNT team, and the most serious… And well, Aram had _always_ had a soft spot for strong, badass types.

Struggling to hold back a wry smile, Samar plucked the last bite of toast from her plate, then used the edge of the table to push herself up off the chair again. She crossed the room slowly, until she stood by Aram's side, peering through the glass of the tank at the turtle still nibbling through his plant food.   
'I don't think he likes me,' she mused, not taking her eye off the tiny reptile for a second. Each time she had nosed around the tank over the last couple of days, Leo had either ignored her, or proceeded to hide behind plants, rocks, or other ornaments in his tank –rather unlike the way he eagerly scurried to the edge any time Aram approached. Aram glanced sideways at her, not really surprised, but resting a reassuring hand against her arm all the same.   
'He didn't like me at first either, but he'll get used to you,' he murmured. 'Little guy used to belong to a college friend of mine, but when he moved to Florida a year or so ago, he couldn't take Leo with him. It's illegal to keep this kind of turtle down there, so he asked me to take him.' Aram reached into the tank to shift some of the food around with his fingertips, prompting Leo to aim for his pellets or something else in the mix rather than filling up solely on the carrot he so seemed to love. 'Once Leo realised I was the one with his food all of a sudden, he started coming to the edge of the tank to greet me-' Aram pulled his hand back out of the tank again '-you can do his breakfast tomorrow, if you want,' he added, breaking into a mischievous grin, 'but for the moment we should probably stop staring at him, and leave him to it.'

'Agreed,' Samar replied, taking one last amused glance at Leo before following on Aram's heels back to the breakfast table. She gave a teasing waggle of her brow; 'what _are_ we going to do today?' Aram glanced back, raising a single, wary eyebrow.  
' _Not_ Xbox,' he muttered, shaking his head in mock exasperation, 'you definitely do _not_ need to play _any_ more Xbox.'

/*/*/*/*

One day of the weekend mostly over, Samar and Aram found themselves resting on the couch, seeing the day out with a movie. Or rather, after Samar wondered out loud what she was supposed to do with her life next, wondering if it was worth simply turning herself in and accepting a few years in prison, Aram had _suggested_ the immediate solution of a movie... Which really only lasted for the first forty minutes or so, before the next wave of tiredness too over, and Samar fell asleep beside him.

There was a deep affection Aram felt as he watched her doze so peacefully, half curled into his side with her head resting softly against his shoulder. From the moment he had realised she was asleep, he hadn't wanted to move; Samar needed as much uninterrupted rest as she could muster, and so Aram had stayed there, switching off the movie, and instead reading the book left on the side table that was _just_ within reach. Now at last, it was late enough to move from the couch and on towards the bedroom but still, Samar slept on. Brow furrowed in the determination not to wake her, Aram set his book back on the side table, then slipped one arm around her back, and the other under her knees. Warily, he scooped her up, carrying her carefully through the apartment so as not to stretch her side, before gently lowering her on to the bed, and pulling the covers over and up to her shoulders. He broke into a soft smile as she rolled in her slumber, grumbling some sleep-nonsense under her breath, burying her face into the pillow, and finally falling quiet once more.  

By the time Aram ducked into the bathroom to brush his teeth, then back into the bedroom again, Samar had stirred herself awake. She gazed across the room from her pillow, seemingly waiting for him to re-emerge, with a sleepy smile on her face.   
'Did I fall asleep?' She murmured, voice half muffled by the pillow.  
'Mmhmm,' he hummed back. Samar pummeled the pillow with a frustrated sigh; not only was her tiredness stopping her from being able to move around as much as she wanted to, it now seemed to mean that she couldn't even enjoy sitting back and watching a movie in full either.   
'I missed the end of the movie...'  
'No, you didn't,' Aram said softly, 'once I realised you were asleep, I paused it. We can watch the other half tomorrow.'  
'Thanks.' The hints of an appreciative smile were just visible on Samar's face past the pillow, but slowly faded again with thought, as she watched Aram move across the room towards his side of the bed. 'Hey, Aram?' She spoke up again, this time with a distinct wariness in her voice. Aram glanced back at her, raising a quizzical eyebrow, and waiting for Samar to continue. It wasn't hard to sense the impending admission of another dilemma from what he knew was a long list of them that idled in the back of her mind. 'We need another cover story,' she observed, 'not to explain who I am, but...' Samar paused, letting out a dejected sigh, 'if anyone realises who I really am, and that I'm staying here, we need a reason why.'  
'Because you're my friend.' Aram furrowed his brow, staring back at her in confusion. His words were matter of fact as if, to him once again, the answer was as simple as that.   
'No,' Samar gently countered, shaking her head; this time, and unlike his insistence on Thursday night that she could stay with him as long as she needed to, she couldn't concede to his kindness as easily. 'Then you'll go to prison for harbouring a fugitive.'  
'So?' Aram climbed into the bed beside her, still frowning in confusion as he pulled the covers up over his knees.   
'I've done the one thing I set out to do, the one thing that sent me down this path-' Samar's gaze dropped pensively to the bedcovers, toying with them absentmindedly as she spoke '-I have nothing left to lose and frankly... That Agent Ressler is investigating me more intently than anyone else ever has-' she glanced up again, the determined fire back in her eyes as she stared back at him, teeth gritted '-at this rate, he'll find _some_ way of sending me to jail for the rest of my life, so why should you have to go as well? We may as well say I coerced you into allowing me to stay here. That... I threatened your family or something, if you didn't.'  
'Samar-' Aram quickly tried to interject; he could see the logic she was getting at, but that didn't mean he liked it.   
'-Even if they do add one more to my list of charges for that, I'll still be going to jail for the rest of my life anyway,' Samar went on, more insistent now, 'so if there's no other good thing left that I can try to do for someone, the least I can do is make sure _you_ stay innocent.'  
'You're my friend and I told you to stay here,' Aram protested, 'I'm _not_ going to lie and say you made me do it.' He locked eyes with her, and for once with his teeth gritted as firmly and determinedly as hers.

'And _I_ don't want to see you go to jail for helping me.' Samar pushed herself back to sitting up in the bed –forcing herself not to let out a wince at the movement- to stare back at him, torn between frustrated glaring and _desperately_ pleading. 'Aram, being noble and wanting to stand up for me is great, but what is it really going to achieve? All it will do is _ruin_ your life.' She paused, realising that her line of argument wasn't working –for all Aram's gentleness, his affection for others and determination to put them before himself, was one instance where a certain inner fire could easily become apparent. Samar bit her lip, quickly switching tactics; 'if you let me help you stay out of jail, it means you'll be on the outside where you're able to keep working my case on the side, and _maybe_ get me out too.' _That_ caught Aram's attention, and the frustration on his face suddenly wavered –not for long, but certainly long enough for Samar to notice. 'Promise me, Aram,' she pressed onwards, 'if the FBI find out you're hiding me, tell them I made you do it... _Please?'_

Aram hesitated before responding, reluctantly weighing it all up in his mind.  

'Ok,' he conceded defeat, though he still shot her a pointed look, 'but only if _you_ promise me that you'll _let_ me get you out-' Samar pulled a face; _of course,_ he would close her loophole '-and no more of this talk that you have nothing left to do and that you deserve to be in prison.' The frustration faded from Aram's face, and he reached across the covers to rest his fingertips across hers, his voice softening as he finally spoke again; 'when the time comes, _don't_ make me leave you behind.' That cued Samar's turn at hesitation and cautious pondering.  
'Deal,' she finally relented. Allowing herself the wince at movement this time, she slid back from sitting to laying down once more.  

Soft smiles crossed both faces, and Aram slid back into his own pillow, extending one arm across the covers as if inviting her to curl up into his side.

'Ok, come here,' he murmured, breaking into a tiny grin. Samar did a double take, surprised by the gesture after managing to disentangle herself from him that morning without causing him to stir even in the slightest. 'The last couple of mornings, I kept waking up with you on top of me...' Aram quickly explained, grin dissipating in favour of a more awkward expression, 'I mean, you don't have to, but I just figured it was comfortable...' He trailed off, cursing himself internally for yet another attempt at trying to make her comfortable that seemed to be a little too forward. A wry smile began to etch its way across Samar's face, however, as the surprise wore off, and with an amused eye roll, she shifted across the bed to curl into his side.   
'I thought I was invading your space,' she mused, letting out a deep sigh of contentment as she rested her head against his chest, and Aram's arm wrapped gently around her back.   
'I'm pretty sure I just accepted you invading my space the day you barged in and tied me to a chair,' Aram chuckled back.  

Rolling her eyes again, but still grinning all the same, Samar gave him a teasing nudge in the side.

'Are you ever going to let me live that down?' She asked, scoffing in mock exasperation. Aram simply buried his face in the top of her hair as he murmured back;  
'Never.'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up, 'Bonsai Trees and Complications'
> 
> It seems with last week's guessing game, I finally managed to stump everyone! So for the next question, let's go with... Which character is going to make their first appearance in the next chapter?


	10. Bonsai Trees and Complications

Days went on, where sleeping wrapped around each other became as much the routine as Aram making breakfast and Samar making dinner. It was never spoken of again –with neither of them overly sure what they should say or how they should feel about both of them being clearly far more comfortable sleeping that way- but night after night, it went on wordlessly, eliciting those deep sighs of contentment from each one upon falling to sleep, and those sleepy, musing smiles upon waking up again the next morning.  

When awake, Samar was more and more stir crazy, with the tiniest fraction more energy returning each day, but still unable to venture outside the apartment.  

In a desperate bid for something to do, something to try and make friends with Aram's turtle, and a way to test out the added security measures Aram had added to her electronic financial trail, Samar even went so far as to do some online shopping –purchasing a variety of plants, rocks, and mock driftwood in more entertaining shapes that would replace the bare minimum objects already in Leo's terrarium that Aram had received with the turtle in question without having enough time to redecorate. Two days later, upon their delivery at the apartment, Samar was faced with the first notable frustration at not being able to leave the apartment and check the mail.

She waited as she discreetly peered through the window, watching the postman enter the building's foyer with the parcel, and then exiting again... And she waited once again for Aram to return home, passing the mail delivery on his way through and bringing it upstairs with him. 

The wait felt like agony.

After her having already beaten every last one of his Xbox high scores, Aram was somehow completely unsurprised at yet another move that inadvertently established Samar's apparent takeover of his apartment. Instead, with an amused grin, he stood by her side that evening, both of them arranging the new selection of terrarium decorations together while Leo swam around, quite happily nosing about each one.   

At work, Aram continued to navigate that fine line between keeping his cover and keeping Samar safe, all the while Ressler remained relentless in his attempts to track down The Phoenix... Until finally, Reddington swooped in. The unexpected rumbling open of the elevator doors nearly made Ressler jump in his pacing in front of Aram's desk, and the number four on the FBI's most wanted list strolled in. Reddington flipped his fedora over in his hands, the smile on his face somehow seeming even more smug that it usually did. Aram's eyes were wide and wary as he watched the scene unfold in front of him; Ressler turning from his pacing to stand deathly still with arms folded, staring impatiently at the criminal strolling oh so casually towards him until they were as close to each other as Ressler was to Aram's desk. Liz, standing beside Aram's chair on the opposite side of the desk, watched on just as curiously –for all of Reddington's insistence that he only ever talk to her, it seemed his sudden arrival was just as much a surprise to her as it was to Ressler.

'Agent Ressler,' Reddington greeted the ginger agent in front of him, with a chuckle almost breaking into his voice, 'still chasing that mythical assassin?'  
'She's real,' Ressler replied. His eyes narrowed in impatience as he spoke, and without even realising it he shifted his weight from one foot to the other, more focused on glaring back at Reddington.   
'Perhaps,' the older man mused, 'but you have no evidence.' He flipped the fedora over once more in his hands, panning his gaze from Ressler, to Liz, to Aram, and then back again, breaking into his trademark smirk. 'You've had the city practically on lockdown, using countless resources and Metro PD manpower chasing a woman against whom you have _no_ evidence of any crime besides one fake driver's license and one flimsy count of breaking and entering.'  
'She's killed countless people all over the world,' Ressler stubbornly tried to interject.   
'She might have.' Reddington's smirk only widened as he spoke. 'But what are you going to use to convince a judge of that when people start questioning the resources you've put into this without actually achieving anything?' Finally, he shifted his gaze for good from Ressler to Liz, gesturing to a slim file in Dembe's hand. 'If you're really wanting to make some credible arrests, I have a new Blacklister you could pursue.'

Aram didn't know what to say and neither, it seemed, did Ressler. Inside, Aram's stomach was turning desperately hopeful somersaults at the idea that the case against Samar might be dropped –or at least, temporarily- but he had to steel himself, he had to restrain any glimmer of delight from suddenly crossing his face. Ressler's face, by contrast, bore a look of thunder; Reddington was right and unfortunately, _all_ of them in the room knew it.  

Quickly spotting the need to step in and move things onwards, Liz rounded the desk to take the file from Dembe who was, as per usual, silently standing guard behind Reddington. She flicked through the pages even faster again, nodded her approval, before pointing out a page of key interest to Ressler.  

With a reluctant, frustrated nod of his own at the pages, Ressler conceded. Chasing Samar would have to wait until another day… Not that he wasn’t going to continue keeping an eye out for her in his own spare time.

/*/*/*/*

That evening as Aram returned home and unlocked the front door, there was a small, cardboard carry box balanced carefully in one hand. The joy at the case against Samar being momentarily dropped hadn't faded, but it was certainly no longer the only emotion now swirling in his gut at the new development. Aram knew that if the case was dropped, that meant Samar was free to travel again without anywhere near as high a risk of being chased down by law enforcement. If Samar was free to travel again, that meant she no longer had to stay at his apartment... And with the two of them already so deep in such a comfortable routine together, Aram wasn't sure how he felt about the idea of Samar suddenly being able to leave that much sooner than expected.  

The fact that for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out why Reddington would have been so insistent on having Samar’s case dropped was curious but far from the top of Aram’s priority list. He wanted so desperately for Samar to be free, but at the same time... There was a deep affection for her now that made him not want to lose her, and _that_ was the dilemma that took precedence in his head.

Aram was pretty sure he knew what that dilemma meant, but he was far less sure that he _wanted_ to know it.  

Feelings only made things all the more complicated.  

The box in his hand that contained what Aram _told_ himself was both a celebratory gift and something for Samar to do, but in reality it was denial; he was celebrating her potential freedom, without wanting her to leave. Aram crept wordlessly through the apartment, for a split second reminding himself to look pleased at the development rather than conflicted by his newfound dilemma... But the reminders only needed to last a second. As Aram rounded the corner from the hallway into the living room, then crossed it towards the kitchen, he couldn't help but break into a more genuine smile at the sound of Samar ambling around in the kitchen and muttering to herself, the overwhelming smell of baking that floated through the air towards him, and finally... The sight of Samar having completely overturned the kitchen.

For some, having a supposed guest completely take over the apartment would have been rude or even an annoyance, but as far as Aram was concerned, Samar's antics were simply an amusement, and a reassuring sign of just how comfortable she was there. If anything, even just the way she glanced up, and smiled warmly back at him in greeting, left a certain swelling of affection that Aram felt inside. He didn't care that she was in yoga pants and a worn, oversized t-shirt, that her eyes bore dark rings from how tired she was, or that her hair was a tangled mess because she couldn't lift her arms to brush and tie it back properly and instead had to rely on him tackling it before and after work. He didn't care that she seemed to have no qualms whatsoever about being in his personal space, or that eight times out of ten she left it messy.  

Aram simply enjoyed having her around; she made him smile, and she certainly kept him on his toes, but only in the best possible way.  

Even her stubbornness, to him, was endearing.  

'You've been busy,' Aram observed, grinning at the mess of pots, pans, trays, bowls, and all kinds of utensils scattered over every last inch of the counter. There was a soup still simmering on the stove top, that if the smell was any indication, appeared to be lentil soup –or more importantly, his favourite- and on the trays still steaming after having just been pulled from the oven, there were fresh chocolate chip cookies.   
'I was bored,' Samar replied, shrugging her shoulders and breaking into an even wider grin. Her eyes crinkled with a certain mischief that was practically contagious, and Aram found himself scuttling a little faster across the remainder of the room to stand across the counter from her, before finally setting down the cardboard box on the only fraction of counter space left. Samar tilted her head, observing it curiously; 'what's that?' She asked.   
'A present,' Aram chirped back. 'Agent Ressler had to pull back all the resources on your case today-' Samar's gaze snapped back to him in an instant, her heart skipping a beat in surprise, and her eyes wide as the meaning of that began to sink in '-and I thought we should celebrate.'  
'With-' Samar raised a quizzical eyebrow and peered inside the box as she spoke '-a bonsai tree?' She glanced up again with a hint of confusion; the joy was there, but for the moment still overtaken with a level of surprise that had the faintest hint of adrenaline starting to race through her system. A second later, and the pieces fell together in her brain; her case being dropped meant it was no longer necessary to seek refuge in Aram's apartment –or at least, for as many weeks as first thought, anyway. The bonsai tree, on the other hand and no matter how much she liked it, seemed an unusual choice, and the confusion only added to the strange swirling of sudden emotion in her gut.   
'It's something for you to do,' he mused, 'you know, in little bits each day as it grows. I was trying to think outside of the box-' Aram paused, rolling his eyes at his own accidental pun '-so to speak.' The tiny tree in its tiny saucer was easy enough for her to carry around wherever she went. Caring for it required considerable long term thought, planning, and regular effort, but without the sort of physical strain that she wasn't allowed to undertake. Samar had spoken often enough in their dinner and weekend conversations about the garden she had grown up with and had missed ever since and so, with all factors considered, Aram had wracked his brain and the bonsai tree was both the best thing he could think of that covered all bases, _and_ it was something a little different.  

And if the sudden, softer smile that slowly lit Samar's face as she thought about it was supposed to be any indication, she agreed.  

The contemplative silence that fell between them didn't last long enough; a sudden knock on the door made them both jump, then glance back at each other in concern. Without a word being exchanged, they knew what to do; Samar ducked immediately –or rather, as immediately she could without actually running- into the bedroom, while Aram smoothed down his jacket, steadying himself, then moved towards the door.  

'Mrs Lund?' Aram did a double take, surprised by the appearance of his elderly neighbour standing on the other side of the door as he opened it. 'How are you?'  
'Oh, I'm very well, my dear,' the little, old lady beamed back, 'how about you?'  
'Uh,' he hesitated, trying to force as casual a smile as possible, 'everything's fine here.' There was something mildly unsettling about the knowing grin that stretched wide across the face of the woman with the flyaway, white hair.   
'I seem to be just one cup short of flour,' she explained, but her eyes wandered not at all subtly past Aram's shoulders and down the entry hall of his apartment. 'Might I borrow some?'  
'Oh, sure.' Aram bobbed his head, 'just a second.' He turned on his heels, moving quickly down the hall and back towards the kitchen.   
'You know, Aram,' the older woman began again. Aram froze, glancing back over his shoulder at her; he had thought that she would stay waiting at the door but instead, it seemed, she had taken his movement as the cue to follow him inside, eagerly chattering as she did so. Aram forced himself to keep moving, to continue the casual act, and hoped beyond everything that there wasn't anything laying around the living room that obviously didn't belong to him. 'I was _sure_ you seemed to have a girlfriend staying with you lately,' she continued on, the words now drawn out with a knowing curiosity.   
'What makes you say that?' Aram awkwardly chuckled back. Pouring the cup of flour into a small tupperware container for her, Aram couldn't quite meet her eye. He was sure, that in the bedroom, Samar could now hear every word of the conversation.   
'Oh, I hear things,' the elderly woman mused, all too pleased with herself, 'call it an old woman's intuition.' She took the container from him gladly and for the second moment that day, Aram was at a loss for what to say.  

'Everything ok out here, honey?' Samar's oh so casual, sweet voice floated out towards them from the bedroom, followed shortly thereafter by Samar herself... And with a flirtatious smirk on her face to boot. She ambled towards Aram's side, careful to move in such a way that her physical restrictions didn't seem quite so obvious, and wrapped herself around his arm, leaning into his side.  

Clearly, while listening in, Samar had come to the same conclusion he had; that Aram's nosy neighbour wasn't going to let the matter go until she had confirmation of her curiosities... And so there Samar was, improvising the girlfriend story they had agreed upon when she had first arrived.  

Thankfully, they both knew that old Mrs Lund had a particular distaste for television to the point of not even owning one, so she wouldn’t recognise Samar’s face from the news reports of her initial escape from hospital.

Aram made quick work of introducing the two, trying to steady himself rather than feel unnerved by the look of gossip-y delight on his neighbour's face, or the way Samar was making a show of their romance by kissing his cheek, running her fingers through his hair and down his cheek, and finally intertwining her fingers through his –all to prompt Mrs Lund to leave by giving her the idea that they had _other_ things to be doing and that she had interrupted them. Finally, she did so, container of flour grasped tightly in hand while Samar waved her away with a friendly smile... Until the front door closed, and Samar shifted her gaze back to Aram, teasing smile widely etched across her face and eyebrows waggling in amusement. Aram was painfully aware of just how close Samar was standing to him and in fact, he was painfully aware of just how intently he seemed to be noticing and taking in every tiny gesture and change of her facial expression all of a sudden –which wasn't to say he didn't usually notice her, because he did, but simply that it was suddenly no longer a matter of noticing her _subconsciously._ Every moment that she smiled or laughed, or brushed against his skin, Aram found himself hyper aware of it, and a breath caught in his throat. Perhaps it was the sudden knowledge that she could leave and his brain trying to take in every last part of her before she did, Aram wasn't sure... But it certainly didn't help suppress the complicated feelings he was trying to deny.  

Samar, meanwhile, couldn't quite manage to break the flirtatious grin from her face. Waiting anxiously in the bedroom, straining with her ear against the door to listen until Aram and Mrs Lund had moved into the kitchen and she realised that the person at the door was not a threat, had jolted all joy at the idea of her case being dropped, and instead replaced it with the sudden fear of being discovered by his co-workers. The time spent standing there, though short, had sent what felt like a hundred anxious thoughts flashing through her brain, all prompted by that very fear.  

Being discovered by his colleagues, just as did the idea of being able to leave his apartment to flee the country once and for all, meant being separated from Aram in some form or another.

And when confronted by that idea right there in that instant, Samar knew; she wasn't ready to leave yet... And more importantly, she didn't want to leave Aram behind.  

Staring up at him now, with Mrs Lund finally gone, the affection for Aram screamed in her head. Of course, she didn't know the same dilemma was bothering him, just as he didn't know it was now bothering her... But that didn't matter.

All that mattered to Samar was that she wasn't sure how to talk to him about it.

/*/*/*/*

Later that night, Aram remained wide awake, staring up at the ceiling as Samar's eyes flickered softly closed, and her breathing slowed with slumber. She was curled into his side with her head resting on his chest again, and Aram had his arm wrapped around her, holding her close. The anxious thoughts continued swirling around in his brain and Aram tilted his head, burying his face in her dark curls. He took a deep breath, taking a certain comfort in her presence and the now all too familiar smell of her shampoo.

No matter how hard Aram tried to tell himself to opposite, he certainly couldn't deny it.  

Between being tied to his dining chair and now, through the hunt for her parents' killer, the whirlwind of her escape from hospital, and all the amusement of her taking over his apartment... In all that time, he didn't just adore her as a friend.  

He had fallen completely in love with her.

But now it felt like he had figured that out far too late.  

/*/*/*/*

The next morning, it was Samar who woke first, still curled contently into Aram's side while he slept on soundly. She gazed at the sleeping smile on his face, and nuzzled against his cheek, pressing the tiniest of soft kisses there as she did so, and then letting out a miserable sigh.

She didn't know what to do.

She didn't want to leave, and the fact that she now could –and by extension, she soon _should,_ once she managed to regain a little more strength- only made the realisation all the more difficult.  

She loved him.

And she was pretty sure there was _nothing_ she could do about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up, 'No Road is Without its Bumps'
> 
> Shoutouts to LoriRon and Saramshipper223 for correct guesses in last week's round of 'Guess Whimsy's Nonsense'. Reddington was who I was referring to with the question, but the guess of nosy, old Mrs Lund is right on the nose too.
> 
> I honestly cannot for the life of me, think of anything in the next chapter that is guess-worthy though, so we'll have to take a chapter break on the guessing game this week!


	11. No Road is Without its Bumps

Samar stood with her arms crossed, trying to restrain herself from letting out a quiet huff of frustration. Once again, the day had arrived where Aram had to carefully change the dressings on her slowly healing wound... And no matter how important Samar knew it was, and how much easier it was for him to do it for her than for her to do it herself, Samar didn't enjoy it. It wasn't a case of being annoyed at him doing it for her, or being annoyed at the sticky dressing having to be painfully peeled off but rather, it was simple irritation at the existence of the wound itself, and the changing of its dressings was the most obvious reminder that it was there.  

Though, the recent realisation of feelings on both their parts didn't make it any easier. The combination of desperate longing for more from each other, and fear of making the move to ask for it, left both of them frustrated and tense. Somehow, the air between them started to feel strained as they put distance between themselves in the subconscious attempt at keeping their sanity and denying their emotions.  

In Aram's case, he was driving Samar crazy by paying even more care and attention to her wound than he normally did, out of the even greater want for her to heal, now that he was so painfully aware of just how he felt about her... Not that Samar had any idea why he was fussing over her any more than he usually did. Standing there in the bathroom with her arms crossed and her shirt pulled up halfway so that he could tend to the wound on her side, she used the mirror to watch his tending to her wound that she otherwise couldn't see if she tried to look down past his hands. Aram paused, tilting his head slightly sideways and furrowing his brow as the old dressing peeled off, and he stopped and stared at the wound underneath. He recoiled ever so slightly, almost as if nervous to touch even the edges, prompting Samar to narrow her eyes.

'What?' She asked, trying to keep the touch of annoyance from creeping into her voice.    
'This morning it looks kind of...' Aram trailed off for a moment, wondering if the deep shade of pink around the stitches was simply a trick of the bathroom light, and then shook his head; 'off colour?'  
'Off colour, how?' Samar gritted her teeth, not at all liking where she suspected he was going with the notion.   
'It's inflamed, I think,' Aram murmured back. He tilted his head, gesturing with one finger at the far edge of the wound; 'and the side here is kind of cloudy.' Samar craned her neck, trying to get a closer look at it via the mirror, but at that distance there was only so much she could see.  
'It looks _fine_ to me,' she sighed impatiently. In all honesty, at that angle, she could barely see what he was looking at, but that didn't matter. She too was in denial, and she wanted no confirmation of the possible infection that Aram was alluding to, but couldn't quite bring himself to voice. 'Come on, you're going to be late for work,' she added quickly. There was an urgency to her voice, prompting Aram to leave the matter be for the moment, and instead finish applying the new dressing.  

But it was too late; even as Aram scuttled out the front door, the concern was already looming in the back of Samar's mind.  

Her slowly healing wound being infected was the last thing they needed, and the worst possible scenario. Caring for her wound, uninfected and stitched up, wasn't easy at home, but it was at least possible without serious medical attention.  

An infection, on the other hand, would need the eyes of a doctor before it became deadly... And the only way for that to happen –or at least, that Samar was aware of- was to leave Aram's apartment, and either turn herself into a hospital, or try to reach her medical contacts who were both out of the District, and for whom she didn't have phone numbers. Either way, it was unlikely the movement would escape the eyes of law enforcement... Not to mention, while turning herself in to a hospital alone didn't guarantee exposure of Aram's helping her, it was certainly a high risk.

Warily, Samar lowered herself onto the couch, and let out a sigh; as if a possible infection, and the tension of feelings wasn't bad enough already, she had snapped at Aram in the bathroom as well. She certainly hadn't intended to, but with the combined tension and sudden, new stress, her own want for denial had sharpened her tone, despite the fact that really, he was only trying to help.

Samar reached for the remote, flicking through the television channels without actually paying them any attention.

What was she supposed to do now?

/*/*/*/*

Aram meanwhile, paused just outside his apartment as the door fell closed behind him. His brow furrowed in concern, as he thought back to the angry, pink splotches and cloudy fluid starting to become visible under Samar's medical dressing. With the exception of the last couple of days, her energy levels had been notably picking up with each day over the last week and a half as her wound healed.

The last couple of days, however, she had started to slow down again –not majorly, but certainly enough for Aram to make the observation. Initially, he had simply assumed that with her returning energy levels, Samar had overexerted herself and then grown tired again... But now that he had seen the odd colouring to her wound as well, Aram was seriously starting to wonder. All too many of the criteria for infection symptoms now checked off, there were alarm bells starting to ring in Aram's mind.

But, there was only so much he could do, if she wouldn't let him look at it.  

Biting his lip in anxious frustration, Aram adjusted the strap of his bag over his shoulder, and finally... He began to move down the hall towards the building's exit, all the while the concern turned somersaults in his gut.  

/*/*/*/*

Even when Aram returned home from work late that evening, the worry that things were taking a turn for the worse still hadn't strayed far from his mind. He reached the edge of the kitchen to find Samar ambling around, making dinner as she usually did, but notably lacking the usual energy and enthusiasm that had characterised her favourite time of the day less than a week earlier. The rings under her eyes were darker than usual, and she moved as if _every_ step felt utterly draining. Without a word –all too aware from her snap at him earlier that morning that she didn't want him making a fuss- Aram stepped in as if it were the most natural gesture one could make. He shot her a small smile as he lifted the lid from the pot on the stove, and gave the stew within a quick stir, before replacing the lid and moving quickly towards the cupboards to start pulling out bowls, glasses, and utensils. Either he was subtle enough with his helping hand for Samar not to notice his recognition of the fact that she was slowing down, or he was subtle enough for Samar to at least pretend she didn't notice, rather than vehemently insisting that she could do it herself.  

Either way, as Aram took the bowls and glasses in hand, and moved towards the square dining table to set it for their meal, he wasn't going to complain.  

He had far more pressing issues on his mind; being madly in love with a woman who could easily be dying in front of him, all the while he wouldn't know it because she was too busy stubbornly insisting that she was fine.  

'How does it feel?' Aram suddenly spoke up. Samar didn't immediately meet his gaze; instead, she remained focused on slicing pieces off a loaf of crunchy bread, buttering them, and then finally setting them on a smaller plate for the table.    
'How does what feel?' She absentmindedly replied. Aram bit his lip.  
'Your wound.' That caught Samar's attention, and she glanced over, furrowing her brow.  
'It's sore,' she said, shrugging nonchalantly; 'but it's always sore.'

Aram paused for a moment without responding. He knew what he was trying to ask, but not quite the words he needed to ask it gently.  

'Does it feel warm?' He reluctantly pressed further. He simply couldn't hold it back any more; if there was even a chance that her condition was deteriorating, Aram wanted to know.   
'Aram.' Samar let out a small sigh. 'My wound is _fine._ ' She held his gaze over the counter, willing him to stop asking regardless of the fact that she knew he was right. If he kept asking, that would ultimately result in both their fears being confirmed... And if they knew for sure her wound was infected, the problem of having to deal with it became all too real.

And Samar didn't want that. She wanted everything to go back to a few days earlier, before her wound became infected and she started to grow tired again, before she realised how she felt, and before she found out that her case had been dropped. That time was so much easier; everything had been going smoothly enough, and they had been so _content_ in their laidback, comfortable routine. Now, on the other hand, there were far too many things on her mind that she didn't want to have to face.  

But as she held Aram's gaze, and he held hers, stubbornly pleading with his eyes rather than giving in to her determination, Samar knew... She couldn't keep pushing this issue aside –not when she knew he had a point.  

'Can you _please_ take a proper look at it?' Aram begged her. He looked so dejected; all he wanted, if her wound really was infected, was to at least try to get on top of the issue before it became any worse. After all, as frustrating as the infection was, if it spread –which it would do _fast-_ it would only make the dilemma of her needing medical attention even more difficult.  

Samar's shoulders sank and wearily, she relented.  

She crossed the room towards where he still stood beside the table, lifting the bottom edge of her shirt just enough on that one side for Aram to be able to peel back the dressing that covered her wound.

But, Aram didn't even need to go that far.

He took one look at the dressing alone, and that was more than enough to make him recoil.  

The cloudy fluid that had been starting to show around the edges of her wound that morning, was now showing straight through, with a faint yellow patch spreading from the centre of the white gauze under the sticky dressing.  

'What?' Samar asked. The question was slow and drawn out, suspicious in its concern at the sudden look of anxiety on Aram's face. Aram steeled himself without answering for a moment, and Samar furrowed her brow in confusion, glancing down at the dressing for herself. She hadn't looked at it all day since Aram had replaced the dressing that morning and she had then pulled her shirt quickly back down over the top... But now, even at her only viewing angle that made it difficult to see the full extent of the dressing, Samar could see the edges of that faint yellow patch.

All in an instant, her gut filled with dread, and she hurriedly picked at the edges of the dressing before even Aram could –though he reached forwards to peel it back properly, barely a nanosecond later.

The dressing peeled away in a flash, but no words needed to be exchanged.

Both of them could see the cloudy pool seeping through the top of the wound, surrounded by angry, red blotches on her skin, and both of them instantly felt their hearts plummet to the bottom of their stomachs. The words escaped Samar's mouth before she even realised what she was muttering;  
'Oh... Crap.'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up; 'That's the Price of Love'. One character makes a return, but guess who else makes their first appearance?


	12. That's the Price of Love

Steady deterioration was noticeable each and every day after that... And while Samar had conceded that not only was she fighting off an infection, but that such a thing put them both in a difficult position too, she continued to fight the idea of going to a hospital. 

Aram didn't care if he was discovered helping her now. Samar was sick and there was little he could do about it besides clean her wound every morning and every evening, and offer some leftover antibiotics that he found in his medicine cabinet from a previous illness of his own -not that either of those things did much to help. He was adamant that she needed proper medical attention and as far as Aram was concerned, if him being caught helping Samar was the price of keeping her alive, that was a price he was more than happy to pay for the woman he loved. 

Samar however, felt the opposite. No longer could she amble about the apartment as she had grown used to doing. Now, she only  _ just _ managed to sit upright for more of the day than spent laying down, but still she remained as stubborn as Aram did. She was adamant that her body could fight off the infection; she just had to wait it out, and if that was what it took to stop Aram's life from being torn apart for helping her, that was the price Samar was determined to pay.   

At least, by that point, the tension between them had faded away once more. Instead, there was a fearful anxiety that lingered between them, drawing them ever closer as they fought the dilemma of who was trying to keep whom safe, and at exactly what cost. At night they clung to one another in their sleep, not sure what to do, while during the day Aram's mind ran endless circles everywhere but what he was supposed to be focusing on at his desk. Each day he waited for the moment to arrive where he could go home again, not sure what he would find when he got there –or if he even wanted to know until all of a sudden, he did.  

Somehow, Samar hung on longer than he expected. 

But, as Aram returned to his apartment for the fifth day of her steady deterioration, there was an anxious anticipation twisting his gut into knots, even more so than it usually did. 

The apartment was quiet but then again, it had been quiet each of the last few evenings when he arrived home to Samar resting on the couch. 

This time, however, Samar wasn't on the couch. 

Aram furrowed his brow, gently dropping his bag from his shoulder to the floor beside the counter, and turning to move towards the bedroom. 

He barely made it two steps into the apartment hallway, before Aram froze in his tracks in devastated horror. His gut twisted with such intensity, it felt like he was about to throw up. 

There was Samar, not resting on the couch or taking a nap in the bedroom, but instead passed out on the hallway floor.  

Aram lurched towards her on the ground, his heart racing as he quickly checked over her vital signs. She was breathing, but it was slow and her pulse was weak. Aram could feel the tears already stinging the corners of his eyes as he shook her shoulders and stroked her cheek, desperately trying to wake her... But Samar didn't respond. Steeling himself, and tightly clutching Samar's hand, Aram tugged his cell phone from his trouser pocket. 

Samar needed medical attention... And when faced with a criminal dilemma, there was only one criminal Aram knew to call. 

He only needed to press one button to speed dial... And as the phone began to ring, two very distinct words flashed on the screen as the name of who he was calling. 

_ Nick's Pizza. _

/*/*/*/* 

It was Mr Kaplan who arrived first, though every second from trying to explain the situation to Reddington and Dembe over the phone all in a jumble, felt like a blur. Aram managed to disentangle himself from being protectively wrapped around Samar's unconscious form, just long enough to answer the door and let Mr Kaplan in. After that, the blur only intensified. 

Somehow, Mr Kaplan managed to extract them from the apartment building without being seen, guiding Aram towards a car in a back alley while he carried Samar in his arms, still desperately begging her under his breath to wake up. In the back of the car, his focus was so intently on her, that Aram paid no attention to where the car took them or how long they were driving. Only once they arrived at a warehouse with a full, portable, medical suite set up inside, did Aram pause to wonder where in the District they were.  

By then, Samar was lifted onto a bed and wheeled away from him by a team of strangers in scrubs, their faces hidden by sterile, surgical masks. 

Aram was forced to wait, pacing back and forth just on the outside of the suite's plastic sheeting walls. The bright lights from inside glared through the plastic into his eyes, and the beeping of the machines echoed in his ears. He had no sense of just how long he stood there; minutes felt like hours and when he craned his neck to glance at the clock across the room that read 9.42pm, Aram was sure time was moving backwards.  

If Aram did the maths correctly in his head, remembering what time he had arrived home, and guessing how long it had taken for Mr Kaplan to arrive and then again, how long it had taken them to arrive at the warehouse, they had only been there perhaps all of fifteen minutes. 

But it felt so much longer. 

The rushing blur of medical staff was over quickly despite that feeling; once Samar was wheeled in, and administered both strong antibiotics and general fluids –to stave off dehydration and to try to bring her vital signs back up to normal levels- all through a drip, Mr Kaplan re-emerged, with many of the medical staff trickling slowly out behind her. Aram glanced up, almost too nervous to meet the gaze that stared back at him so sternly through her glasses. 

'Samar is stable for now, dearie,' she commented softly, 'but she'll need to stay here under observation and on the antibiotics until the infection clears.' There was something about the expression on Mr Kaplan's face that to Aram, was vaguely reminiscent of an affectionately stern parent, older extended relative, or perhaps even an elementary school teacher. It was as if she cared enough to be disappointed by his choices, but wasn't angered by them or likely to scold him. It was like those moments where the controlled, gently unimpressed tone was far more frightening than any yell ever could have been.  
'Is she going to be ok?' Aram asked. His voice was quiet, anxious, and if anything, he wasn't sure how he was managing to find the words at all in the face of that stern gaze. His eyes flickered for a moment, peering past Mr Kaplan through the clear walls at Samar's still unconscious form, no longer blocked from view by the medical team.   
'Hopefully.' Mr Kaplan's softly warning tone prompted Aram's gaze to snap straight back to her. 'Whether or not the antibiotics entered her system early enough to stop the infection doing any further damage, is something we won't know until we see what happens next. If we caught it in time, it should start to clear soon enough and she'll be just fine.'  
'...And if not?' Aram bit his lip as the fearful question escaped him. Mr Kaplan stared back at him silently for a moment, pursing her lips.   
'She should have had medical attention sooner,' she observed, all too matter of factly. It failed to escape Aram's attention that Mr's Kaplan's reply barely answered the question, and for the umpteenth time that evening, it felt as if his heart was plummeting straight back down into the deepest depths of his stomach. 'There's little we can do now besides waiting and seeing,' Mr Kaplan added, gentler this time. 'You can go and sit with her now. Raymond should be here soon, and I have a rotation of nurses on standby to make sure one of them is here with her at all times in case she takes a turn for the worse.' 

Aram could only bring himself to give a short, appreciative nod –not that he wasn't grateful, because he certainly was, but because he was now so desperate to be by Samar's side that he was struggling to stop himself from lurching past Mr Kaplan long enough to express his gratitude with any gesture further.  

Somehow, the older woman that he towered over understood and despite her grim expression, she brushed a gentle hand against his arm, prompting him towards the door in that plastic walled suite.  

And with that, she was gone before Aram even realised that she had moved. Far more focused on Samar however, Aram pushed through the plastic sheet door, gaze fixated on the slow rise and fall of Samar's chest as she breathed. According to the machine, her pulse was back to where it was supposed to be, but that did little to make Aram feel any better. Not taking his eyes off her for a second, he lowered himself onto the chair by her bedside. He reached out, gently brushing the hair out of her eyes with his fingertips and tucking it behind her ear. Next they moved slowly across, softly stroking her cheek, then finally coming to rest around her hand.  

Somewhere in the back of his mind as he watched her, it occurred to Aram that he was in too deep, but that anxiety weighed little compared to the anxiety of waiting to see if Samar's infection cleared up. 

He couldn't lose her now. 

After all the ups and downs of the last week or so, that would be a particularly cruel twist of fate. 

Though, Aram couldn't help but wonder if that was the price that he had to pay for having found her so many months earlier and everything else that had happened since then. The guilt sat heavy in his gut, wishing that he had fought harder to convince her to seek medical attention earlier –regardless of the fact that he knew Samar was stubborn and would have fought him back even harder still.  

Sitting there quietly beside her now, staring into space, felt useless but at the same time, Aram was reluctant to leave her there. At some point he would have to; it wasn't as if he could take a personal day off work due to a loved one being ill. As far as his team was concerned, all in his life was normal, not filled with an overwhelming stress over a former assassin that he loved but who was sick in an illegal warehouse hospital. Aram had to go to work as usual the next day and every day after that while Samar remained in that hospital, and that meant he needed to keep some semblance of a regular sleep schedule. 

Every moment outside of that and work, however, he planned to sit with her there. Even if he struggled to say it out loud at all, let alone to her face, he loved her.  

And that meant being there with her as long as he could, all the while the space of empty air and beeping machines, was with endless anxious thoughts spiralling around in his brain.  

'How is she?' A dry, quiet voice interrupted Aram's train of thought. His head whipped up in an instant, looking up at the doorway in the thick, plastic walls in surprise. Reddington stood there, apparently having approached without Aram even noticing.      
'Uh,' Aram warily began, 'they're not sure yet.' Reddington's silent gaze in response bore into Aram's skull even more than Mr Kaplan's did, and he miserably bowed his head.  
'You've been hiding a great deal of things from the people around you lately, Aram,' the older man slowly spoke again. His voice was soft, but his tone was sharp and all too knowing. 'I had a feeling you were keeping something back from Agent Ressler's investigation, but not this.' Aram was almost too nervous to look up again. Instead, without even realising it, his finger clung ever so slightly tighter, and more protective, around Samar's.   
'...You mean, that she was staying with me?' His voice caught in his throat as he asked the question.   
'Not that.' There it was; Reddington's trademark lip curling up with his usual smugness at knowing things people didn't expect. 'I guessed that much a while ago, though not as soon as I should have, I must admit.' The smug expression faded ever so slightly, replaced with the tiniest hint of curiosity. 'What I didn't realise, however, was just how deeply you're in love with her.' If nothing else served to prompt Aram to properly meet his gaze once more, that certainly did. He stared across the room at Reddington, eyes too wide with cautious surprise to squint at the bright hospital room lights.   
'I'm not-' he hurriedly tried to counter, but Reddington cut him off.   
'-Aram,' Reddington mused, 'you were already in a deep hole of secrecy and questionable dealings just by hiding her from your team-' that usual knowing expression slowly etched its way across his face once again '-but now you've called in _ my _ team to keep her alive, rather than risk calling your own and taking her to a real hospital.' Reddington paused for a beat or two, allowing that to sink in before speaking again, softer this time; 'last I checked, people only do things that drastic for those that they love.' 

Aram's shoulders sank. Reddington knew everything.  

Head bowed once more, and face crumpled, Aram refocused his gaze on Samar. 

'Are you going to tell Liz?' He asked, his voice barely audible. If Reddington knew everything, he also held all the cards. Everything before had been dependent on ensuring that the secret of their friendship was never discovered but if Reddington now knew it as well, everything became dependent on whether or not he would choose to keep it to himself.  

And every favour garnered from Reddington always came at a price.  

Reddington, however, broke into a knowing smile.  

'And lose the best technical analyst I know to prison for harbouring a fugitive, rather than allow him to stay on the team taking down the names on my list?' He mused, 'turning you in serves me no practical purpose, Aram-' Reddington tilted his head for a split second, contemplating that '-not  _ yet, _ anyway. I once owed you a great debt... And now it's simply your turn to owe me one.' Aram's eyes widened again, but Reddington turned on his feet in the door, ready to leave it at that. The number four on the FBI's most wanted list simply glanced back over his shoulder at Aram, breaking into a wry smile as he murmured one last time; 'I'm sure I'll find a way to collect on it eventually.'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up; 'The Small World we Live in'.
> 
> It seems last week's round of guessing was another tricky one; all three guesses were different, but all interesting! Shoutouts to BJames (ffnet) and LoriRon for guessing Red's return, and another shoutout to my BAE for guessing Mr Kaplan's appearance as well! :D
> 
> Now for the next chapter, guess who cheats at Scrabble? The questions about the small world they find themselves in are too spoiler-y so we'll go with Scrabble instead :P


	13. The Small World we Live in

Aram scurried down the dark street, with his head down, the hood of his coat pulled firmly over top, and clutching a paper bag full of takeout tightly in hand. This was the routine now; each day after work he went straight to Samar's side in that warehouse facility, staying there until it was late and he knew he needed to reluctantly retreat home to sleep just long enough before work again the next morning... And ever since she had woken up again some two days after being rushed there, that journey from Post Office to warehouse only had one stop in the middle; dinner for both of them.  

Thankfully, Aram's coat stopped most of the drizzling rain from chilling him to his bones, but that was as far as any sense of relief went. The black sky of the back alley at night, lit only by one weak, flickering street lamp somehow only added to the sense of anxiety that for Aram, now seemed to have become a perpetual state of being.  

If he had been worried about keeping his relationship with Samar a secret from his colleagues before, now it was ten times as difficult. During the day it was hard to stop his brain from wandering well away from the caseload, and all the way back to how Samar was recovering all by herself in that warehouse with only one nurse and the occasional appearance of Mr Kaplan for company until he arrived there late after work.  

Taking a quick, furtive glance over his shoulder up and down the alley in both directions to make sure he wasn't followed, Aram pushed open the heavy metal door to the warehouse, slipping quietly inside. The majority of the internal space was the typical, wide, open, empty, cement-floored warehouse but right in the middle sat that hospital room sized block with the plastic walls and the bright, almost-blue lights shining out from within. Since Samar's rushed arrival there, and Mr Kaplan's expert set up of the space at barely a moment's notice, Aram had found himself wondering a few times, just how often the facility had been set up before for Reddington or others of his associates, and in just how many places.

But that was far from the most important thing to figure out.  

Much more important, was waiting and seeing when Samar would be well enough to return home.  

Well, to _his_ home anyway. But to be honest, Aram had long since been accustomed to thinking of it as _their_ home.  

Before Aram could even reach the plastic door with his outstretched fingertips, he could see Samar's sleepy, smiling gaze following every second of his approach through those clear, plastic walls. After those first two terrifying days of next to no improvement, she was finally awake again but she wasn't out of the woods yet. The antibiotics seemed to be working in that the infection was starting to fade for now but the majority remained there, and Samar still spent more time asleep than awake –her body's limited energy supplies reserved solely for fighting back. Though thankfully, _if_ she continued recovering at the current rate, it was estimated that she would be well enough to return home in just a few more days, and resume resting there instead. Samar covered a yawn with the back of her hand as Aram walked in, but returned his soft smile all the same. He made his way around the room to the opposite side where his usual seat was, as well as the rolling, over-bed, tray table –upon the latter of which, he set down the bag of food, before leaning over slightly to press a soft kiss of greeting to Samar's forehead.  

'You got Paco's Tacos this time?' Samar mused, her sleepy gaze now firmly affixed on the logo of the paper bag. Her smile widened a little further as she read those two words that no longer belonged just to Aram's favourite taco place, but easily one of hers as well.  
'Well, I had to mix it up,' Aram chuckled softly back, 'after Chinese last night, pizza the night before that, and I don't even remember what the night before that, I figured it was time to stop by Paco's again.' Samar reached across the bed and over to him, brushing her hand against his in the attempt to help unpack the food, but Aram simply paused, giving her fingers that reassuring squeeze, and then pulling the contents out unassisted.  
'It was Thai food,' she mumbled through another stifled yawn, 'the night before the pizza, we had Thai food. I remember that part.' Aram furrowed his brow, thinking back for a moment, before breaking into another grin and shaking his head in amusement.  
'Of course it's the food that you remember,' he gently teased, 'but who won the round of Scrabble that night?'   
'I did,' Samar replied, rolling her eyes in mock exasperation. She was tired and hazy, but her memory of the last few days wasn't _that_ bad, despite occasional forgetful moments. Aram instantly opened his mouth to protest, but Samar interjected before he could even get out a single word; 'you _cheated_ with those last fifteen points, so they don't count,' she scoffed.   
'I did not,' Aram muttered under his breath, but shot her a guilty grin all the same. Scrabble or any other board game really, that could be played from the rolling tray table that sat poised over the bed, was the best thing Aram could think of to keep Samar bedbound and yet still entertained while he was there with her -or to a certain degree, anyway. Every so often over the last couple of days, he had cheated just by scribbling down a couple of extra points on the score sheet simply to keep her brain on its metaphorical toes and see if she noticed but no matter how tired she was, her brain was too sharp while they played and she had managed to catch him every single time.  
'Did too,' Samar quietly shot back, as Aram stifled a soft chuckle. She set her hands either side of her on the bed, trying to push herself up, but only managed to get halfway before Aram had to reach out to help, wrapping his hands around her waist to lift part of her weight for her, rather than straining her side. Samar let out a small sigh of frustration, absentmindedly rubbing the patch of her pajamas that covered her wound.  

Aram took the lid off the first foil tray of food and pushed it towards her on the rolling tray table, before continuing on to unwrap his own, not at all seeing the concern in helping her up as he had done frequently in her first week or so at his apartment.

Samar however, was less at ease with the idea. As much as she appreciated his help –and adored him for it too- she wished that she could finally do things for herself again. She had come so close to that point, before the infection had struck her down again –apparently having waited just long enough to taunt her with a momentary taste of growing independence before taking it away from her all over again.  

She loved Aram but if he was ever to fall in love with her too, this wasn't how Samar wanted it. Not while she was so tired, sick, and unable to do basic things for herself. As far as Samar was concerned that wasn't her at all, and she didn't want Aram ever to think that it was.  

That train of thought came to a screeching halt as Samar suddenly glanced up, realising that she had paused in her thoughts while leaning halfway over her food, and Aram was now watching her with a quizzically raised eyebrow as if trying to read her thoughts just from the look on her face.

'I hate feeling so fragile,' she muttered, letting out another frustrated sigh as she spoke, as if that explained everything. She lifted a piece of her tacos from their foil tray and took a bite, her tense shoulders relaxing out of sheer satisfaction at the flavour she so loved to savour.   
'You're not fragile.' Aram's voice was soft, but no less adamant, 'you're sick and injured, there's a difference.' There was a distinctly disbelieving look on Samar's face as she met his gaze, not at all convinced.  
'I'm _not_ this person who passes their days ambling half-heartedly around the house because they can't do anything more than that.' Samar shook her head as she spoke, and her tone was borderline vehement –loathing the idea that she ever could be such a person. Sympathy crossed Aram's face, though he tried to keep it subtle. He knew how much she hated it but at the same time, he didn't know how else to convince her.   
'I know that,' he insisted. There was a hint of determination building in his voice, just enough for Samar to hesitate in her disbelief. Aram held her gaze, desperately wanting to reassure her that it was true. 'You're the person who tied me to a chair out of sheer curiosity over the idea that someone could possibly track you down,' Aram slowly spoke again. Samar rolled her eyes, but Aram continued, more and more determined with every word; 'you're the person who has already completely taken over my apartment, and who is _so_ stubborn and fierce, you somehow always find the energy to laugh and sass me no matter how exhausted you are.' He paused, giving her a moment to let that idea sink in and Samar bowed her head slightly, letting out a small sigh of frustration. 'And I don't have to imagine how even more fierce you would be if your body wasn't holding you back,' Aram added, allowing a tiny grin to slowly start etching its way across his face. Samar glanced up again at that, her own eyes finally crinkling too. 'I've heard more than enough stories to know better.'  

/*/*/*/*

It was after dinner, and after another round of Scrabble, that Samar lay back in her hospital bed with Aram still sitting there by her side, holding her hand. He hadn’t cheated in this particular round; this time Samar had outdone him so spectacularly that it didn’t seem necessary to do anything else to keep her mind active. Now though, she was tired again, and the air between them was filled solely by the usual quiet conversation that had sent her off to sleep each of the few nights prior.  

A slight shadow in the bright hospital lights loomed over them all of a sudden, causing both gazes to flicker wearily towards the door.

It was Reddington who stood there again, musing smile staring in at them.  

'Ah, you're awake,' he murmured, 'how are you feeling?' Reddington offered Samar a small smile; 'I must admit, ever since Aram called me the other day, I've been quite concerned.' There was a delay in Samar's response; Reddington hadn't yet visited while she was awake, nor was she aware that he had anything to do with her treatment, but there was no denying that she recognised him. She turned her head on her pillow, glancing back and forth between Aram and Reddington with her eyes wide in suspicion and surprise.   
' _You_ called _him?'_   There was an element of something vaguely resembling betrayal that wavered in her voice –like all of a sudden, for a moment, she was doubting everything she thought she knew about him. Aram froze like a deer caught in headlights, finally opening his mouth to stammer a response, but not before Reddington spoke up over him.  
'You weren't wondering how you ended up in a facility like this?' The older man asked, lip curling up in that usual trademark smirk.   
'Our conversations hadn't reached that far yet,' Samar said quietly in response, though her gaze now remained transfixed on Aram; 'I thought you worked for the FBI...'

For all the time they had spent together in the limited space of Aram's apartment, he had breathed few words of the specifics of his job. He worked cases, helped catch criminals, and trawled through their digital footprint for evidence, but all the more specific details he had kept to himself. In Samar's waking hours, especially in her less energetic days, there was a priority list of things to talk about, and it was the more emotional or more entertaining topics that sat right at the top.  

'I do,' Aram slowly began. His shoulders rose with anxious tension in the face of Samar's hurt expression. 'But not in the Hoover building...' He trailed off, not sure how to explain what it was exactly that he did in further detail.   
'Aram is part of a special taskforce that works out of a Bureau blacksite, tracking down particular criminals that I provide the information on,' Reddington calmly jumped in for him, 'but he's not the only one in this room who knows me, is he?' There was another pause. Samar's heart skipped a beat and she slowly tore her gaze from Aram, staring cautiously back at the criminal mastermind standing in the doorway.   
'Samar?' Aram's voice cracked in the background, now his turn to sting with with the pang of betrayal, but for the moment Samar took no notice.   
'Of course, the one time we met before, you introduced yourself somewhat differently,' Reddington continued to muse. For the first time, he redirected his smirk towards Aram; 'the Phoenix is one of the rare contract killers in the world to have ever successfully tracked me down.' The smirk twisted into an expression of impressed recognition; 'she was also the fastest to do so, and the only one to do so more than once.'  
'It was three times,' Samar muttered, 'but I didn't kill you.'  
'No, you didn't.' Reddington tipped his head to her in acknowledgement. 'Tell me though, how was that delicious looking drink that the bartender handed you as I left our passing encounter in Prague? I've always regretted not staying to try one for myself but then again, I figured it was best not to stay that close to an assassin for too long.' Once more, Samar's eyes widened in suspicious surprise.  
'You knew who I was the whole time...'  
'I had an inkling.'

By now, that all too amused, knowing look on Reddington's face was growing irksome.  

'You didn't kill him?' Aram finally managed to string together a few confused, curious words again. 'Was this before or after Agent Ressler nearly caught you in Brussels?' It was Samar to whom he directed the question, but she wasn't the one who answered it.   
'On the way there, in fact,' Reddington chuckled to himself, 'what a small world we find ourselves in.' There was yet another pause as Reddington continued to stand there, eyeing both of them in that twisted amusement. Neither Samar, nor Aram, knew exactly where to look. They both knew Reddington, but neither knew that of the other. The revelation that they did was one that neither quite knew what to make of. It made sense and yet, somehow at the same time it stung of a secrecy that was never intended in the slightest. 'But the one thing I never understood, is why you didn't kill me,' the older man continued, not at all unnerved by the hint of tension in the air between them. 'Those who hire contract killers don't generally appreciate it when you skip out on the job.' Samar took a breath before responding.  

'I never took the jobs,' she explained quietly, 'I received so many offers, from so many of your enemies, and the amount of money they offered was...' She trailed off for a split second, letting out a breath and shaking her head in disbelief as she thought back to all those mind boggling zeroes that were written down on pieces of paper slipped into her her hands. 'But I always turned them down. I only tracked you down after that out of curiosity to see if I could. I'd heard stories about you; that you're the Concierge of Crime and that you're relentless, but you do what you do as part of a wider picture... In a way, like myself.' Samar shrugged; there was nothing much else she could say; 'so I turned the offers down.'  
'And as a result, you indirectly prompted a few others to steer clear as well.' Reddington tipped his head to her again. 'Some people out there in our world mistakenly think you work for me, and are too scared to come close in case I send you after them... It's not an unhelpful illusion, at times.' Aram furrowed his brow in sudden realisation as he quickly glanced back and forth between the pair of them.   
'Agent Ressler thought that at first, too,' he said hurriedly. Samar's head whipped back around to stare back at him in a flash.   
'What?'  
'Because you were lingering in DC to stay close to me,' Aram explained, speaking fast, 'so he thought you were either tracking Reddington or working with him.'

Samar let out a low whistle under her breath.  

'And that's why _your_ taskforce took _my_ case...'  
'As I said,' Reddington murmured from the doorway, 'it's a small world we live in.' He flipped his fedora over in his hands once, twice, all the while still smirking. His gaze was sharp, studying them curiously in silence for a moment... Before tipping his head to them and turning on his heels once more.  

Silence fell between them again as once again, they were left to themselves. The sting was gone, but both were still processing the revelation of the unexpected connections.  

'I'm sorry,' Aram quietly broke the silence, head bowed.   
'Why?' Samar broke into a sheepish, _just_ as apologetic smile. 'Knowing him is as much your job as it is mine, I guess.' The look on her face turned serious once more; 'what worries me is that of all people to call when I was sick, you called _him._ That man doesn't do anything for nothing.' Her fingertips squeezed tightly around his. 'I would never want you to owe that kind of man a debt like that, just for me.' Aram shuffled awkwardly in his seat, not sure how to respond to that. As far as he was concerned, it wasn't a case of _just_ for her. She was far more important to him than she realised, and as daunting as the concept of a debt to Reddington was, Aram believed Samar was well worth it.   
'We can deal with that tomorrow.' He gave her hand a reassuring squeeze of his own as he spoke; 'for now, just rest.' Samar eyed him for a moment, but decided to drop _that_ particular debate.   
'Are you sure Reddington won't tell your team what's going on?' She asked, disbelievingly. Aram stood from his seat, leaning over her just enough to press one last soft kiss to her forehead for the evening as he murmured cautiously;   
'Mostly.'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I think the Scrabble question at the end of the last chapter might have been a little too tricky, but shoutouts to everyone who took a guess. Not going to lie, all the theories about who out of all the Blacklist characters would cheat at Scrabble made me grin though :D
> 
> Next up; 'Home Again... With Purpose'. Hopefully this is the chapter where something happens that everyone's been waiting for, if only some other things (*cough* Reddington *cough*) don't get in the way... I honestly have no idea what one thing to make you guess for that chapter though, so I'll go back to figuring out how to write the end of this story (not too much more to go, now!) and you guys can guess anything you like :D


	14. Home Again... With Purpose

Moving Samar from the warehouse medical suite back to Aram's apartment somehow seemed to be an even greater operation than the reverse. Aram sat at his war room desk, constantly checking the time on his watch every five minutes; the closer they came to the time he knew Samar would be moved, the more jumpy he felt while forcing himself to sit there still in his seat. To try and keep the move quiet and inconspicuous, Reddington's team had all agreed that moving her while Aram had the rock solid alibi of his own team was the best path of action, but that didn't stop him from itching for details.  

All he knew was that when he had left for work that morning, Samar was still at that warehouse but hopefully, by the time he returned home that evening, she would be there waiting for him...

...And all of Reddington's team would have vanished into thin air somewhere in between.

Aram had already wormed his way into the security camera feed of his building, recording patches of empty hallway and entrance spaces to loop back in place of any vision of Samar's return later. She was set to move through the building with the sole company of one of Baz's men by her side to subtly hold her up as she walked, but otherwise pose as her visiting father if any of Aram's neighbours happened to pass them. All the while, Reddington and Dembe followed at a distance, and Mr Kaplan, and the rest of the team waited in a vehicle outside, waiting to hear that the transfer was complete, just as ready to move if any obstacles appeared in the way.  

It was _around_ lunchtime that the operation was supposed to take place, but Aram had no idea whether that was supposed to be closer to 11.30 or 2. Absentmindedly, his hand kept brushing against the phone tucked into his side trouser pocket, waiting for the message to come through that all was ok... And in the meantime, it took every ounce of self restraint he had to stop himself from checking the security camera feed from the building to try and see it all happening for himself.

For once, it was almost a good thing that Liz and Ressler were occupied with paperwork right there in the war room rather than out in the field. As worried as Aram was about them possibly noticing his jitters, at least their presence also served to convince him not to bring up any potential camera feed of Samar on his computer screen lest they saw it. 

He only hoped that Reddington's message came through soon, because Aram felt like the anticipation had him about to explode.  

/*/*/*/*

The arm of Baz's teammate released Samar's waist as soon as she reached Aram's couch and was able to lower herself carefully onto the seat. Walking that far unsupported by nothing more than that arm had been a mammoth effort in her current state, but they had made it, and kept their careful cover to boot. Samar let out an involuntary sigh of utter relief as she sank into the couch cushions, shooting a grateful smile in the direction of the silent, older man who had held her up, before glancing back over her shoulder to note the front door closing softly behind Reddington as well.  

Only Mrs Lund had passed them in the hall, with the little, old lady pausing to offer a delighted grin of recognition and an amused, knowing chirp of 'good afternoon' before continuing on her way. Samar wasn't sure she wanted to think about whatever it was that Mrs Lund thought she knew, but either way she was pretty sure it was nothing close to the truth.  

They were clear.  

'Ok, I think that's about everything,' Reddington murmured into his earpiece, taking one final glance around the living room. He waited a split second, for his team in the car outside to respond, before switching his gaze to Samar and breaking into a smirk. 'I think it's about time to let Agent Mojtabai know you're safely ensconced in his home once more,' he mused, 'I'm sure he's rather impatiently awaiting my call.'  
'Wait,' Samar spoke up. Reddington's hand hesitated in taking the flip burner phone from Dembe's hand, narrowing his eyes slightly in curiosity at the interruption. 'Before you go...' Samar trailed off for a moment, holding the older man's gaze in firm determination. 'You told Aram that he owed you a debt-' Reddington gave a slow nod in response to her carefully measured voice '-I'd like to pay it off... But I might need that lawyer of yours.' The was a curious flip of a fedora in hand, and a contemplative tilting of Reddington's head as he thought about it.   
'What did you have in mind?'

/*/*/*/*

For the first time in what felt like far too long, Aram woke up the next morning wrapped around Samar once again. After nine days of waking up alone each morning while she was under Mr Kaplan's care, as soon as Aram's eyes slowly flickered open and the presence of her there in his arms registered in his brain once again, he could feel the warmth of joy rising in his belly. He couldn't help but bury his face in her hair, and then press a slow, soft kiss to her cheek. Little kisses like that had already become the norm, it seemed –his brain's subconscious compromise between his anxious self restraint and his desperation adoration and want for more.  

What hadn't occurred to him, with the gesture having become such an instinctive, subconscious one, was that Samar was doing the exact same thing back.  

Though on this occasion Aram lingered there, blissful in the comfort of her warmth there next to him and the way she was curled so contently into his chest. Finally, he began to shift, carefully trying to free himself without waking her... But those fingers that had been softly wrapped around his now tightened as he moved, stopping him.

'Just where do you think you're going?' Samar's voice, as muffled as it was by her pillow, had a soft, teasing edge to it. Her grasp on his arms pulled them gently back around her again. Her eyes flickered open, her head shifting slowly on her pillow to gaze up at him, breaking into a tiny smile.   
'I was going to make you a nice breakfast, now that you're home again...' Aram murmured back, 'how long have you been awake?'  
'Longer than you.' That tiny smile on Samar's face widened a little more. 'I was enjoying just laying there... Now that I'm home again.' Aram paused without responding, curiously studying that smile instead; he had long since considered his home to be _their_ home, and he had been sure for nearly just as long that Samar felt the same... But never before had he heard her say that or anything that implied it out loud.  

And that smile... It didn't matter that she had exhausted dark rings under her eyes, or that her sleep mussed hair was all over the place; she was there sinking happily into his arms, held so close that Aram could practically feel her heart beating against his chest, and that smile up at him was bordering right on seductive. The breath caught in Aram's throat as he stared back at her. It was overwhelming.

It was right then that Samar knew. She could see the battle playing out across Aram's face, where he was torn between desperate longing and cautiously holding himself back, and that was when she knew for sure. She had suspected it in the last few days of her makeshift hospital stay, that her feelings for him might not be quite as one sided as first thought, but until she knew for sure she was as cautious as he was. Now though, there was no attempt on Aram's part –or if there was, it was a dismally failed one- to hide the dilemma suddenly hurtling through his mind, from showing on his face. She could feel his heartbeat racing faster in the rush of adrenaline, and she could hear the little catches in his breath. If anything, her own heart began to quicken in pace just in response. She had been hoping so desperately that her suspicions were true, because she wanted it too.

The development of feelings had been frightening at first, especially with the realisation of them then flying the face of nearly having to flee and nearly dying too. She had never wanted to make that move, only to then be forced to leave him behind forever.  

That would have destroyed both of them.

And yet, somehow, there she still was... Curled into his chest with his arms wrapped around her, holding his gaze and unable to stop herself from smiling at how happy and relieved she was to be back there again. Alone in the hospital bed, she had missed the warmth of Aram and his bed, enveloped by those soft, cotton sheets and thick, cozy comforter. Now back there again, the relief was even more overwhelming than the realisation of just how quickly she had become accustomed to life with him in the first place. Samar's fingertips came to run softly across the scruffy stubble that tickled her skin, before resting gently against his cheek. Fraction of an inch by fraction of an inch, she pulled him ever closer until their foreheads leaned softly against one another... And her lips sought his. There was a small gasp of surprise that Aram let out against her lips, but not the slightest murmuring of objection. Within seconds his arms around her tightened, holding her as close as possible, and Samar melted into him. Both were hungry for each other, with Samar letting out a soft moan at that sensation of his lips captured in hers _finally..._ Until they had to draw breath. Still though, hands lingered, skin against skin, keeping each other close. Samar wanted more, to go even further still, but they both knew that would have to wait. Her body was still too exhausted, and as immensely happy as Aram was with both sets of hands still conducting their own gentle exploration of every curve and inch of each other, he would undoubtedly be even more stubborn than she was in insisting that they wait rather than risk straining her injury by giving in. Instead, Samar's legs tangled comfortably around his, and Aram nuzzled softly into her hair, dotting intermittent kisses to her lips, neck, and collarbone, smiling blissfully against her skin.  

'I spoke to Reddington yesterday,' Samar murmured. She buried her face against his chest as Aram moved to run his fingers through her hair but he paused, doing a sudden double take at her words.   
_'That's_ the conversation you want to have right now?' He couldn't help but let out a strained laugh out of sheer surprise. Samar shifted her head against his chest, glancing up at him and rolling her eyes.   
'What I _want_ is to stay here,' she said softly, 'with you.' Samar waited for a moment, for a more earnest, curious expression to cross Aram's face before speaking again; 'and that means I need to change some things.'  
'Samar-' Aram hurriedly tried to interject. His brow furrowed with a hint of alarm, but Samar wasn't finished.   
'-After my brother died I thought the path I ended up on would make me feel better, but it didn't,' she reminded him –albeit gently, 'but it _did_ lead me to you, and _that_ led me to the man who killed my parents. That man also did this-' one hand made a sweeping gesture towards her wounded side, while she narrowed her eyes in annoyance at it '-but he's gone now, and with him gone I don't know what to do next. I can never go back to Mossad after everything I did, but...' She trailed off for a moment, letting out a sigh before glancing up again, holding Aram's gaze with a hopeful earnestness and intense determination. 'What I _can_ do is agree with Reddington to continue turning down all offers to take him out, in return for his lawyer pulling the case against me to shreds, so that I _can_ stay here with you... Freely.'

Aram's mouth made a distinct 'o' of surprise.  

'You did _what?'_ He spluttered. It wasn't an angry or frustrated splutter but rather, a stunned one, with an ever so slight hint of concern. That wasn't at all the announcement he had expected and if anything, almost felt far too good to be true. Without even realising it, his arms around her tightened slightly, as if instinctively holding her close to him was all it would take to prevent any idea of Reddington's offer backfiring somehow and pulling her away from him. Samar however, brushed past the splutter, rolling slightly so that though still in Aram's arms, she was pushing herself up, leaning over him and gazing down at his stunned expression with a sheepish but still determined grin.   
'I also paid off your debt,' she added simply, as if that needed no explanation whatsoever. The look on Aram's face turned wary.   
_'How?'_  
'I can't go back to working for law enforcement, but I can't go back to doing what I was doing when I met you either-' Samar gave a nonchalant shrug '-so Reddington suggested that I work for him.' Aram tried not to wince or at least, he tried to reduce his urge to wince to a more internal, emotional cringe. Everything about what she was proposing sounded dangerous, and he had already nearly lost her twice, not to mention the guilt he felt at the way she had taken it upon herself to even attempt to pay off _his_ debt –regardless of the fact that he had incurred it in the naming of helping her.   
'Doing what work, exactly?' The cautiousness in his voice was all Samar needed to know that Aram wasn't sure he wanted to even ask the question at all.   
'Any incidental task that needs doing that I have the skill for,' she mused, 'apparently Mossad training is a valuable asset.'

The deal was simple; Reddington had Marvin Gerard already on her case, going through each and every piece of the limited evidence Ressler thought he had against her, and ensuring that none of it could ever come together in any way that could result in even the slightest charge against her. In the meantime, Samar had the task of misdirecting every person in the criminal or otherwise from now on, who ever dared to approach her with the request of Reddington's life or perhaps even, as one had requested years earlier, his head on a pole.

And to tie it all up in a neat, little bow, she was paying off Aram's debt with her own services.  

Well, once she was physically fit again, anyway.  

Samar waggled her brow, pleased with her negotiations with Reddington the day before. She at least, was confident in the thought that it was a good plan. She ducked her head, planting another quick, teasing kiss to Aram's lips.  
'But if you're going to work for Reddington and his lawyer is freeing you of all charges...' Aram tried to mumble against her lips but then gave up, ultimately all too engrossed in the kiss to actually complete his sentence.   
'...I'm probably going to end up being another informant to your team,' Samar gently finished for him as she finally pulled herself back again, 'which might just bring back some sense of purpose and justice.'

The more serious expression was back on her face again now; she knew it was a lot to take in, but it seemed the only solution that gave her both the freedom she craved, and the fierce quest for justice and helping people that she had always been driven by. She desperately wanted it to work and the only way to find out if it would, was to at least _try._

'That is a _lot_ to process,' Aram murmured warily.   
'I know.' Samar's voice was soft then, and she brought gentle fingertips back to stroke his cheek to reassure him.   
'Especially after-' he rested his own hand atop hers on his cheek, intertwining his fingers with hers and giving them a gentle squeeze. The tiniest of grins crossed his face at the way she had kissed him and Samar grinned back, knowing exactly what he was thinking.  
'-I know,' she said quietly again. Aram hesitated before responding. He wasn't sure it was as solid a plan as Samar seemed to be suggesting, but oh _how_ he hoped it could be. Aram was as anxious as she was determined, but if they wanted any hope of trying to make it work, they had to meet somewhere in the middle. He was always going to worry about her, but if it gave her freedom and allowed them to stay together... Aram could force himself to _try_ and hold back his more anxious tendencies while Samar, it seemed, despite her confidence, wasn't about to dismiss his wariness with a casual wave of her hand. Instead, she settled back into that comfortable spot curled into Aram's side, pausing only to press another soft kiss to his cheek as she moved before finally resting her wild mess of dark curls back against his chest.   
'But I guess that...' The cautious breath caught in Aram's throat just for the split second. ' _Might_ just work.' He broke into a tiny smile, forcing himself to focus solely on the good that would hopefully come of the plan, rather than the disasters that could happen if Reddington's world went haywire again as it so often seemed to. He ran his fingertips through her curls and shifted so that she could rest there more comfortably in his arm... And finally; the muscles in his face that were tensed, slowly began to relax. The smile became softer, more genuine. She was right there, with him, and in that moment that was all that mattered.

Hopefully, once the shock wore off, the idea of her working for Reddington would be a little less disconcerting.  

'Mmhmmmm,' Samar hummed back, nuzzling into his shoulder, 'and you know what else might work right about now?' Samar felt a slight movement on the pillow that she couldn't quite see, but she knew it was Aram tilting his glance to her and raising a quizzical eyebrow. 'Breakfast.'  
'I thought we were laying here a little longer first,' Aram mused in response. There was a pause as Samar weighed that up in her mind.  
'Coffee in bed?' She rolled in his arm so that she leaned back from his chest and instead glanced up at him again, that teasing smile now etched wide across her face once more, and Aram couldn't help but break into a grin.   
'Deal.'

He pushed back the bedcovers, clambering out of bed but still lingering there until she too, slowly rose from the bed and ducked around it to catch up with him. Samar slipped her hand in his, quite happily allowing Aram to gently lead her from the bedroom to the kitchen and eventually back again.  

Until she healed at least, working for Reddington was the future to contemplate. In the meantime, the only thing they had to do for the day was enjoy each other's company.

And as they stood by the coffee machine with empty mugs awaiting that caffeinated elixir of life, they remained wrapped around each other with her head resting contently on his shoulder, and his head leaning softly atop hers... Both fairly certain that for the moment, _that_ was all they needed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up, and finally... 'The Twisted Path Still Finds the End'. I'm still working on it, but it'll pretty much be posted as soon as it's ready and beta proofread -so keep an eye out! :)


	15. The Twisted Path Still Finds the End

Weeks of healing went on, with no further hurdles of infection, and little bit by little bit, each day Samar's energy returned.  

In the mornings she wouldn't let him leave for work without a kiss; whether she was already out of bed and ambling around the apartment or whether she was still dozing in bed, enjoying the warmth of the bedcovers a little longer, it didn't matter. At some point, she would reach forwards and take Aram gently by the collar, adjusting his tie until it hung straight, then finally pull him in closer until he sank into her, and her lips found his. Of course after that point, Aram didn't want to leave... But eventually he did. Sure, there was an odd day here and there where he was five minutes late scurrying out of the Post Office elevator and into the war room because they had been so caught up in the moment, but he got there nonetheless.

In the evening when he returned home again, the first task at hand was to find her and kiss her back. In most cases, she was putting the finishing touches on dinner, until Aram came into the kitchen and distracted her by wrapping his arms around her from behind and nuzzling his face into her hair.  

It took a few weeks of that before the work of Reddington's lawyer shone through.  

Aram absentmindedly checked his mail on the way through their apartment building when he returned home, only pause in confusion as he found one envelope addressed not to him, but to Samar instead.  

Her charges were dropped forever. The hunt for her was over.

Needless to say after dinner, Aram insisted that they make the most of the evening's pleasant weather and take a stroll outside. It didn't matter that the only things within walking distance of the apartment were a park and a corner store; for once, Samar could leave the apartment and enter a public space without risk of being arrested... And that was _everything._ They did the full lap around the park twice, passing not one but _two_ Metro PD officers who eyed her with a mild hint of frustration but otherwise left her alone, before they stopped in at the corner store on the way home again, just because they _could._ Not even the idea of being spotted on CCTV footage was an issue now.

Weekends went hand in hand with going out and about, being able to explore the District and enjoy Saturday lunches in diner booths or Sunday breakfasts in quaint cafes, _together._ And, as Samar healed, early mornings went hand in hand with getting straight out of bed and being able to go for a run –at first a gentle jog, and then slowly but surely increasing the pace as her fitness returned.

And then came the next letter addressed to Samar; the confirmation from the Federal Bureau of Investigation that she was now an asset –a consultant who had to work with Aram's team until _they_ were satisfied that she had paid her dues and then some.  

Her freedom came at a price but given the alternative, Samar was content to accept that.  

Ressler was sent the memos from the higher-ups to say his case was shut down and the supposed killer he had been chasing was now his team's consultant, and he wasn't a fan. With that, naturally came about the revelation of where Samar was living and well... Both Ressler and Liz recognised that address far too quickly. Aram could feel their eyes on him when he sat at his desk, both of them shaken by the revelation and the idea that they couldn't trust him after he had hidden the truth for so long. Liz eventually let it go, but Ressler... Aram was fairly certain that if it wasn't for Samar's case being dropped and her being accepted as a consultant, he would have been fired for insubordination instead... But he didn't care about that. He loved her far too deeply for Ressler's annoyances not to simply bounce off him.  

The only thing that made either Samar or Aram nervous after that, with Samar finally being medically cleared for the job, her security clearance and consultant ID being issued, was her first day on the job looming ever closer.

When Aram's alarm clock sounded that morning, it wasn't just for him anymore. Torn between anxiety and excitement, Samar woke and sat up in the bed with a jump. Aram slowly sat up beside her, rubbing her back.   
'Everything ok?' He asked softly.    
'Mmhmmm...' Samar turned her head to offer him a sleepy smile. 'Today's the day.' There was an edge to her tone however, as if she was trying too hard to sound upbeat, and faltering somewhere in the middle. Aram tilted his head towards her, pressing a reassuring kiss to her cheek.   
'Let's not get ahead of ourselves,' he murmured, offering a small smile, 'breakfast and coffee first.' Samar leaned back against him, sinking back into the arm around her.    
'Do we have time for anything more than toast?' She sighed. Aram gave a hopeful shrug, tugging gently on her hand to prompt her to follow him in clambering out of bed.  
'We might if we make it together.'

They tag teamed taking showers, and making coffee and French toast. Somehow in doing so, they were dressed, their backpacks for the day were packed, and they found themselves sitting side by side on the two barstools at Aram's kitchen counter in record time. They didn't have endless hours to have deep conversation over coffee consumed sip by sip, but they had time enough. They had time to sit there without needing to inhale breakfast on the run to work and more importantly, they had had time to breathe.  

'Agent Ressler doesn't want me on your team, does he?' Samar's gaze remained fixed on her breakfast as she asked the question, but Aram turned his gaze to her by his side, raising a cautious eyebrow. There was no easy way to answer that question.    
'Well... Not really,' Aram began. He chose his words carefully; 'but then again, he doesn't always like working with Reddington either, but he still does it.' He furrowed his brow in concern, pausing until Samar finally pulled her gaze from her coffee cup and stared back at him. 'Are you reconsidering?'  
'No.' There was a certain vehemence to Samar's voice and she shook her head adamantly. 'I want to be free, and I want to do something good for the world. I really want this to work out.' Which was to say, she wanted it so badly, that the sudden thought of the frustrated agent she had met in the hospital being unwilling to let her help, was a little unsettling. As much as she had made the decision for herself to work for Reddington and the Bureau in the desperate attempt to right her wrongs and keep some semblance of a grasp on her freedom, the reality was that she wasn't just at Reddington's mercy in doing so, but at that of Aram's team too.  

Whether or not they chose to accept her assistance rather than essentially leaving her to sit silently in an office corner, was one more thing her freedom hinged upon.  

'So you're nervous, now that the day's here.' Samar nearly bristled at the observation, as gentle as it was. Nervousness was rarely something she allowed herself to feel, let alone something she allowed other people to notice... But as she turned to meet Aram's gaze, only for him to hold it for barely a second before flashing a brief, reassuring smile and turning back to his own breakfast, Samar let it go. He wasn't making a fuss but rather, simply making sure she knew he understood.    
'Something like that,' she murmured back. Samar shook her head out of sheer annoyance at herself and how ridiculous she felt, but couldn't help but break into a tiny smile too, as out of the corner of her eye, she noted a small crinkling around Aram's.  

He gulped back the last drops from his coffee mug and pushed himself up from his seat. He lingered there a moment, peering over her shoulder to check the contents of her mug, before hurriedly ducking around the counter to the coffee machine on the other side, and bringing it back again, wordlessly dividing the remains of the elixir of life between both of them. Samar swivelled in her seat in surprise at the sudden appearance of that dark liquid gold being poured practically over her shoulder, and Aram standing there... The pot from the coffee machine came to rest softly on the counter, now behind her, but Aram still lingered there. He leaned in, brushing those loose strands of hair back off her face and behind her ear as he always did, then pressing the softest of kisses to her lips. Samar's arms slipped over his shoulders, pulling him in closer to her all too gladly.

Finally, and not that either of them appreciated it, there was the need to draw breath... And finally, Samar was smiling again, properly now.  

'Come on,' she murmured, rising to standing in the tiny space between Aram and her seat. Still with her arms around the back of his neck, Samar waggled her brow as she spoke; 'let's go see if I'm allowed to help you save the world.'

/*/*/*/*

Those heavy elevator doors rumbled slowly open, the noise almost echoing in Samar's ears. Aram's hand around hers suddenly tightened, giving them that reassuring squeeze.  
'Ready?' He asked softly. Samar stared out through those doors into the war room, taking a breath. Of all the futures she could possibly have imagined for herself the day before her parents died, this reality was about as far away from those fantasies as one could reach. From her life changing in the blink of an eye from a happy childhood to one where she had to raise herself, to the defection to Israel and Mossad, to losing her brother and abandoning her post, and everything else along that path from then until now... Never would she have expected to end up as a criminal consultant to the FBI whilst working for the Concierge of Crime, after years as the world's most deadly assassin. Never would she have expected to find the love of her life in the midst of all that either.  

It was the most twisted path she could have ever taken to find both him, and the sense of justice and peace within herself that finally had her satisfied... And yet still she had found them.  

Samar let out a slow, deep breath.

'Ready,' she murmured back. She gave a short nod, smoothing down the edges of her shirt, and then took that first step forwards out of the elevator, Aram moving quickly beside her.   

As they moved steadily towards what she knew –from listening to Aram's endless stories of his office in the last few weeks- was his desk, Samar eyed the two agents that stood in front of it, waiting for her with narrowed eyes. Those two agents, one strawberry blonde and one with dark waves, who had interviewed her in the hospital so long ago.

Their names were still crystal clear in her mind.

Keen and Ressler.  

Samar didn't falter however. There was no break in her stride towards them no matter how much Aram's shoulders seemed to tense next to her as they closed the gap between them and his team.  

She had no idea what path was next for her, nor how twisted or otherwise it may or may not be... But that was a question for another day.  

Right now she had Aram, and she had her freedom.

And that was all she needed.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's the end, folks! 
> 
> Thanks for reading and of course, for playing the endless rounds of Guess Whimsy's Nonsense! :D


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